Dancing in fissures: Embodied practices in animation to communicate a decolonial world

Abstract

As part of an ongoing PhD research in design, this paper shares the process of creating hand-drawn animations of corporeal movements from Afro-Brazilian religious communities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, known as terreiros. This process can be seen as a case of "crossing of knowledge" between universal practices of design and pluriversal, decolonial practices that resist and strike the colonial project by inhabiting its fissures. Relating this idea to the concept of embodiment, this paper aims to discuss about the supposed separation of body and mind, and, comparably, of making and designing, linking them with questions on technological progress and on the participation of the body in creative projects.