Amanda Carneiro's Diary of Art and Crisis in Pandemic Brazil

In a diary-like essay for Afterall, Brazilian curator and contributing editor Amanda Carneiro reflects on artworks that surfaced in her mind during the COVID-19 pandemic and political turmoil in Brazil. She revisits Adrian Piper's Everything, #2.8 (2003), a photograph with erased faces, and connects it to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's quote on freedom through loss. Carneiro discusses Octavia Butler's Kindred, Jota Mombaça's text on the cognitive plantation, and the historical writings of Lima Barreto and Emilia Viotti da Costa. She examines Belkis Ayón's collographs of the Abakuá secret society, Arthur Bispo do Rosário's embroidered banner, and Black Quantum Futurism's Temporal Disruptors watches. Carneiro cites 125,000 COVID-19 deaths in Brazil and higher mortality among Black people in São Paulo. She references Carolina Maria de Jesus's manuscripts, Dalton Paula's portrait of Lima Barreto, Lorna Simpson's Five Day Forecast (1991), and Rosana Paulino's Parede da memória (1994/2015). The essay weaves personal meditation with art historical analysis, exploring themes of time, memory, and systemic violence.