This conversation draws on an online discussion involving Brazilian Indigenous hip-hop artists Bruno Veron and Kelvin Peixoto, of the Brô MC’s duo, and Kunumi MC (a.k.a. Owerá). The Brazilian rap movement began in São Paulo in late 1980s, led by Black performers and activists, among them DJ Thaide and Racionais MC’s. As in other countries, Brazilian rap and hip-hop are mostly urban. Racionais MC’s focus on youth life in the peripheral areas of urban São Paulo, featuring topics such as racism, social inequality and drug violence. These themes held clear appeal for Indigenous peoples confronting racism, displacement and violence in Brazil. Performing in a combination of Guarani and Portuguese, Brô MC’s emerged in 2009 as the first Indigenous rap and hip-hop group, speaking to the violence and racism against Indigenous peoples that are particularly intense in the region they come from, Mato Grosso do Sul.

This conversation draws on an online discussion ‘Casa Adentro (Inside the House): Anti-Racist Art Practices’ (21 May 2021) held with the Afro-Colombian dance company Sankofa Danzafro and the Afro-Colombian art collective Colectivo Aguaturbia. The participants explore the concerns and creative processes that reflect on the durability of racialised social orders and the way racism is manifest in various areas of the lives of Afro-descendant men and women in Colombia. The artists reflect on these issues on the basis of their anti-racist artistic practices.

This chapter explores the theoretical themes of the book: art, politics and anti-racism; emotion and affect in art and politics; Latin American racial formations. It outlines the research project on which the book is based: Cultures of Anti-Racism in Latin America (CARLA).

A conversation curated from an online event, Decolonising the Arts in Latin America: Anti-Racist Irruptions in the Art World. Artists from different parts of Latin America talk about their work from a decolonial and anti-racist perspective. Participants include Miriam Álvarez, director of the Mapuche theatre company El Katango; Alejandra Ejido, director of the Afro-Argentine company Teatro en Sepia; Ashanti Dinah Orozco, Afro-Colombian poet and Afro-feminist activist; Rafael Palacios, founder and director of the Afro-contemporary dance company Sankofa Danzafro; and Arissana Pataxó and Denilson Baniwa, Brazilian Indigenous visual artists.

The conversation draws on two texts by members of the art collective Identidad Marrón, which both explore how racialised subalterns can decolonise the art world and specifically museums. The first is a statement by visual artist Abril Caríssimo; the second is a text by Flora Alvarado y América López, titled ‘Malonear los museos’, reflecting on their experience of curating an exhibition titled Qué necesitan aprender los museos? (What Do Museums Need to Learn?) for the public Palais de Glace museum, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The chapter analyses how racialised differences have been represented in artistic practice in Colombia, and the relationship between negatively racialised artists and the art world. The first two sections cover from the colonial period to the first half of the twentieth century and address the representation and participation of Black and Indigenous people, using examples from visual arts, literature, music and dance. White and mixed-race artists tended to represent racialised subalterns in primitivist and paternalist ways, although some displayed socialist sympathies in depictions of social inequality, without racism coming into clear view. By the 1930s and 40s, Black artists were critiquing social inequalities and explicitly identifying racism. We then analyse the increasing politicisation of Black art practice, which was linked to international currents such as Négritude and Black Power. Also important was the Black social movement in the country, which began in the 1960s and gathered strength with Colombia’s 1991 constitutional multiculturalist reform. The fourth section explores the work of the Colombian artists – mostly but not exclusively Black – who collaborated with us in CARLA to show how their diverse art practices have addressed racism in increasingly direct ways.

This chapter reflects on possibilities for anti-racism in artistic practice. Drawing on the work of the diverse artists we have collaborated with in the project Cultures of Anti-Racism in Latin America (CARLA), I focus on two types of intervention that I believe help us to think about various ways of doing anti-racism through art. The two types are challenging stereotypes and working with communities, and I explore how various artworks engage with these modes of artistic action and how they create emotional traction and affective intensity. The aim of the exercise is to be productive and helpful in the struggle against racism by providing some tools that artists and organisations can use to think strategically about anti-racism as a practice and reflect on the opportunities and risks that attach to different interventions.