Contemporary art incorporates land, memory, and experience as sources of knowledge. Ancestral Soils: Artistic Research, Quilombola Territories, and Decolonial Aesthetics examines the relationship between artistic practices and ancestral land as matter and meaning. The very title of the book indicates the close relationship between creativity, territory, and history that has been expressed through resistance, survival, and cultural expression.
The Quilombola territories in Brazil are lands that have been created by the descendants of enslaved Africans who have created their own autonomous lands. These lands are the knowledge of the generations that have been encoded in the land, in agriculture, in rituals, and in memory. The artistic research that has been produced out of this condition is often about listening—to the land, to the elders, and to the collective memory that has been transmitted through practice rather than text.
The artists operating within this paradigm approach research as a collective and ethical endeavor. Rather than appropriating stories or symbols, they work in collaboration with communities, recognizing the value of local knowledge as equivalent to academic or institutional knowledge. This practice disrupts the conventional systems of art that have traditionally excluded the voices of Indigenous and Afro-descendant cultures.
Decolonial aesthetics are part of this process. Instead of appropriating the dominant visual discourses, artists turn to local materials, oral cultures, and bodily practices. Textiles, earth pigments, performance, sound, and video are used as mediums to convey the relationships between people and land.
Land, Memory, and Decolonial Artistic Practice
Ancestral soils are living histories. Land becomes a place where history is remembered, problematized, and reactivated through artistic research. Artists interact with agricultural practices, religious sites, and mundane activities to understand how memory is preserved outside the boundaries of recorded history.
Quilombola territories also disrupt the notion of ownership and borders that are commonly held. Artwork that comes out of these territories focuses on shared care rather than personal ownership. This approach transforms how art exhibitions and institutions curate such artworks.
Institutional engagement requires transformation as well. Decolonial art practices are about who owns the knowledge, who gets visibility. There is a requirement for long-term engagement and not just temporary inclusion. This is a moment for museums and galleries to re-think their role as neutral spaces and to locate themselves within the history of colonialism.
The aesthetics that have arisen from this body of research are often subtle and radical. They are not easily consumable and require time, thought, and consideration. They ask that one engage with complexity rather than clarity. In this way, decolonial aesthetics are not about knowing all the answers but about providing a space for multiple forms of knowledge.
Through collaboration, care, and resistance to colonial frameworks, Ancestral Soils highlights how contemporary art can act as a bridge between past and present. It demonstrates that decolonial aesthetics grow from the ground up—rooted in soil, sustained by community, and shaped by generations who continue to create, remember, and belong.
