Visual artist and drifter, he has walked long distances through several countries, accumulating experiences, objects, and images, as well as conducting performances. Exhibitions: 55th Venice Biennale (2013); 12nd Lyon Biennale (2013); Montevideo Biennale (2013); São Paulo Art Museum (2012); Centro Cultural São Paulo (2009). He lives and works in Belo Horizonte.
In this video installation comprised of four independent pieces, Paulo Nazareth approaches, departing from different perspectives, the memory of slavery in Brazil. In each video, the artist walks backwards around a tree 437 times. In L’Arbre d’oublier (filmed in Ouidah, in Benin, which housed one of the largest ports for slave traffic in the 18th and 19th centuries), Nazareth rounds the Tree of Oblivion, around which men were forced to complete seven turns, in a ritual of erasure of affective memories and identity. The performatic gesture is repeated by the artist around other trees, in Africa and Brazil (such as golden trumpet, a Brazilian symbol), in a poetic attempt to rewind history, reclaim memories never forgotten, and rewrite the hegemonic narratives of colonial times.
