The Exhibit (February 2026)
One of the largest repatriation efforts of Afro-Brazilian art ever undertaken took place in 2026, and Michigan played an important role in making it possible. The Detroit-based non-profit Con/Vida: Popular Arts of the Americas, working closely with artists and families across Northeastern Brazil, coordinated the return of 666 works of Afro-Brazilian popular art to Salvador, Bahia.
For more than thirty years, Con/Vida founders Marion Jackson, Professor Emerita at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan where she served as Associate Dean in the School of Art (now Penny Stamps School of Art and Design), and Barbara Cervenka, an Adrian Dominican Sister and former instructor at the University of Michigan, built close ties with artists, families, and workshops in the Northeast of Brazil, returning year after year to Salvador and its surrounding regions to build their collection for Con/vida programming, featured for exhibitions in cultural heritage institutions throughout the United States. These sculptures, metalwork, woodcarvings, paintings and prints, toys, and devotional pieces were cataloged, crated, and prepared for shipment in 2025, and were received by the National Museum of Afro-Brazilian Culture (MUNCAB) in Salvador in January 2026, where they rejoined the cultural landscape that shaped their creation.
Produced largely by Black, self-taught artists working in ateliers, workshops, and marketplaces throughout Recife, Caruaru, Juazeiro do Norte, Cachoeira, and Salvador, the collection reflects the creative ingenuity, community memory, and diasporic traditions that define Afro-Brazilian popular art.
Back in Bahia: The Repatriation Journey of Afro-Brazilian Art from Detroit to Salvador
Offered a space of recognition for the artists, communities, and cultural stewards both in Brazil and in Michigan whose sustained commitments made this historic return possible. This exhibition highlighted selected pieces reflective of the broader repatriation effort, featuring woodcut prints by João Francisco Borges, Nilo dos Santos, Givanildo Francisco da Silva, José Miguel da Silva and a selection of literatura de cordel (cordel literature): popular and inexpensively printed booklets or pamphlets containing social commentary, popular lore and folktales, poems and songs.
