Mariana Rodrigues

Mariana Rodrigues is a visual artist, digital designer and lives in Osasco, São Paulo. She has a degree in Digital Design from Anhembi Morumbi University. The artist studies abstract paintings as support for expressing a subjective language of the unconscious, an approach she develops from the sensibilities of nature linked to movement. She is part of the Nacional Trovoa movement, where she connects and develops actions based on racialized women in the Brazilian art circuit. In 2018 she was part of the collective AEANFDC (Environment for National Art Blackening in Favor of Cultural Decolonization), carrying out activities, exhibitions and performances.

In this collaboration with Ibirapitanga, Mariana decided to represent her favorite fruits – banana and papaya – as well as Dona Laura, whom she describes as “a woman member from Quilombo da Fazenda, a 200-year-old quilombola community, located in Praia da Fazenda, one of the most preserved areas of Atlantic Forest in the state of São Paulo.” About the experience and the process of representing her, Mariana says: “Dona Laura welcomed me into her home with open arms and heart. I spent about a week camping in her backyard, just meters from the sea. With this illustration, my desire is to honor this ancestral warrior woman who taught me so much, showing other perspectives on what it is to be a black woman in the search of her freedom and in the struggle to maintain her territory and tradition. The illustration came from a photograph I took when we went to her agroforestry and bioconstruction. It includes a banana tree and a banana heart, which is used to prepare the delicious quilombola salad.”