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Aline Motta

Filha Natural (Natural Daughter)

The story begins with the artist’s search for her great-great-grandmother Francisca, an enslaved woman who lived on a coffee plantation in Vassouras, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth century, until the abolition of slavery in 1888, over 5 million Africans were forced to cross the Atlantic arriving into the territory that is now Brazil. However, due to the violence of slavery, and the extreme precarity of their lives, their biographies are often unknown. Many Afro-descendent Brazilians are still searching for their roots.

Aline Motta Filha Natural (Natural Daughter) 2018-19

While researching her family’s history, the artist found archival documents pointing to the Fazenda de Ubá (Ubá farm) as a potential site where Francisca may have lived. The film builds on this process of recuperation, uncovering layers of history, connecting the dots, retying bonds within a familial, communitarian and national context that continues to carry traces of immensurable pain. Motta questions the legacy of slavery asking, “Which architectures remain standing and which architectures have disappeared? Which structures of thought still prevail?”

In Vassouras, Motta meets Claudia Mamede, a community leader, and the two contemplate shared ties. “Acho que temos uma umbigada no tempo” (I think our navels bumped throughout time), she remarks.1 This interconnectedness traverses space and time, across multiple generations of women, whose presence is summoned through photographs. Filha natural asks powerful questions about what it means to live in the aftermath of catastrophic events. Yet it also celebrates the endurance of ancestral cultures, through blood and community, speech and song, against all odds.

Location: Galerie Ecker

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