Rodrigo D'Alcântara

Rodrigo de Alcântara Barros Bueno (Rodrigo D'Alcântara) is a visual artist, film/video-maker, and PhD candidate in Art History at Concordia University (Montreal, CA). His doctoral studies are supported by the Concordia University Graduate Fellowship and Concordia International Tuition Award of Excellence. He holds a Master's degree in Visual Arts from the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and a Bachelor's degree in Plastic Arts from the University of Brasília (Brazil) - with an exchange term in the Los Andes University (Colombia). Rodrigo's works have been screened internationally, in countries such as Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Germany, Greece, and Italy, among others. His doctoral research proposes a transversal historical revisionist approach as a response to the urgencies of the Brazilian socio-political present. To do so, D'Alcântara selects a wide range of Brazilian contemporary artworks made by dissident New Media artists, that propose re-reading, updating, or subverting the colonial imagery linked to the country's official history. This dissident body is composed of Indigenous, Afro-diasporic, and queer subjectivities. The current scenario of crisis, violence, and inequality reflects an official Brazilian history fueled by Christian patriarchalism, racism, and oppression that chose to protagonize the European settlers, therefore excluding, exotifying, and creating stereotypes towards the groups here understood as dissidents. In this direction, D'Alcântara analyzes contemporary case studies that expose colonial artistic practices, such as costume books and royal entries. Furthermore, in the course of his writing, the PhD Candidate mainly proposes to shed light on Indigenous mythologies, cosmovisions, and artistic practices that have been persisting in Brazil since the pre-colonial period and how they can intersect with Afro-diasporic and queer narratives in the construction of a counter-hegemonic history today. Finally, through this multidimensional approach, the research aims to expand the foundations of Art History in the field of Latin American studies and its correlations with Racial and Gender studies.