Sertão Negro: Afro-Brazilian Art School Anchored in Ancestral Practice

Reclaiming Territory Through Art in the Brazilian Cerrado

Far from Brazil’s cultural epicenters, artist Dalton Paula and scholar Ceiça Ferreira have founded Sertão Negro—an experimental art school rooted in Afro-Brazilian philosophies. Situated in the Cerrado biome near Goiânia, Goiás, Sertão Negro fuses contemporary visual practices with ancestral knowledge, community engagement, and ecological care.

A Vision Informed by Quilombist Autonomy

Launched in 2021, the school is grounded in quilombist thinking, evoking the legacy of maroon communities founded by escaped African slaves. This model prioritizes self-governance, cultural resilience, and sustainability, shaping every pedagogical and infrastructural decision on site.

Strategic Investment in Local Infrastructure

Paula reinvested his €100,000 Chanel Next Prize to expand Sertão Negro’s facilities, including new studios and artist accommodations. With backing from the Soros Arts Fellowship, the school runs a residency program that provides artists with stipends, travel coverage, meals, and housing—resources still rare across the region.

Pedagogies of the Land

Programming includes workshops in ceramics, printmaking, and Capoeira Angola, alongside practices such as medicinal gardening and local restoration efforts. The space centers Black, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and neurodivergent creatives—positioning artistic production as an embodied, collective, and spiritual act.

A Site of Healing and Cultural Reimagination

Sertão Negro is more than a school—it is an artwork in itself. A living archive and ritual site for resistance, it fosters community-building through aesthetic and ecological experimentation. As Paula frames it, this is “a dream of healing through art.”

Sources

• The Art Newspaper – Sertão Negro: Art School in Brazil’s Savanna
• Open Society Foundations – Soros Arts Fellowship: Dalton Paula
• ArtReview – Artist Profile: Dalton Paula

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