Reimagining the Archive

Fernando Banzi’s photo colorization project Tipos (Types, 2017) reimagines nineteenth-century photographs of Afrodescendants originally taken by German-born photographer Albert Henschel in Brazil. Henschel photographed enslaved and free Black people, producing stereotyped images that circulated commercially and were marketed to tourists. I argue that Banzi employs digital colorization as a form of artistic fabulation that repositions Black subjects within the archive and projects inclusive Afro-Brazilian presents and futures. Drawing on the concepts of critical fabulation (Saidiya Hartman), countermemory (Michel Foucault), Afrofuturism, and local photopainting practices in Brazil known as fotopintura, this paper situates Banzi’s work within broader debates on archival silences and artistic interventions. Through close readings of selected digital photopaintings from the Types series, combined with historical and visual contextualization, I examine how Banzi reimagines Afrodescendant subjects as bearers of cultural memory and figures of innovation. This paper contributes to ongoing conversations about the power of art to subvert historical “truths” and imagine more equitable futures for African diasporic people.