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Representing the World, Weathering its End: Arthur Bispo do Rosário’s Ecology of the Ship

Arthur Bispo do Rosário, Vinte e Um Veleiros (Twenty-One Sailboats), Museu Bispo do Rosário Collection. Photography: Rodrigo Lopes

Publish date: 10 aug 2023

Written by Marlon Miguel

This text is part of Afterall Journal Issue 54 ‘Voicings’ which interrogates and challenge the imposition of normative or dominant modes of being, perception and expression.

Marlon Miguel focuses on Arthur Bispo do Rosário’s many ship-shaped objects which, he suggests, function as symbolic markers of the transatlantic slave trade and the persistent climate of antiblackness in Brazilian society. Borrowing a neologism from poet Conceição Evaristo, Miguel names Bispo’s act of defiant self-inscription in a history that wanted to erase him an escrevivência, a writing to survive.

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