The Possessed

In The Possessed, Patricia Werneck Ribas alludes to the resilience of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble in the face of colonial and modernist imposition.The artist juxtaposes fragments of influential texts from European thinkers over footage of practitioners of Candomble carrying out rituals on a deserted Brazilian beach. But they are not invoking demons that horror films and Christianity would have us believe.
Candomble arose through a process of syncretism between traditional religions of West Africa, particularly that of the Yoruba, and the prevalent Roman Catholicism in Brazil when it was still a colony of Portugal.
Brought to Brazil by the Portuguese during the sixteenth through to the nineteenth century, enslaved Africans were taken to plantati…
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