The redeemer and the ex-enslaved

collective memory, representations of black people and the construction of Princess Isabel's image.

Abstract

This article is constituted through the analysis of two works – a bust and a sculpture, respectively: Bust à Princesa Isabel, produced by the sculptor Humberto Cozzo and Ex-slave praising the skies for his release, by Adauto Venturi. Being located in the city of Juiz de Fora, the first installed in the garden of the Mariano Procópio Museum and the second in an urban area in front of Parque da Lajinha. Both bring a common element: the representation of black people enslaved in the Juiz de Fora region at the time of abolition, building different narratives about the same fact. Therefore, from the analysis of these monuments, we will seek to understand in what ways the princess's image was historically constructed as a "redeemer" - and what reflections it ends up leaving in the present time in the formation of the city's public memory. the representation of black people in a city that concentrates memory disputes about the participation of ethnic groups in the construction of themselves, in the past.