Hi everyone, my name is Janice. I'm a Brazilian black artist. I was born in Rio de Janeiro, a place where anything can happen. My work and my research talk about the duality of the universe, connecting my experience in Candomblé with my visual research, especially what I see in Rio de Janeiro, through art I seek to tell the result from those two extremes. My art today is a result from the past, using clay with my visions of the future. I refer to the Yoruba [people’s] myth that humans came from the clay. In technical terms, I’m a cultural curator and creative director. I do many handcrafts; I’m always uniting all this in my art.

Yes, my grandfather was a painter. For 5 years my dad sat with me and taught me how to draw. He told me how art made my grandfather's life comfortable but also troubled. I have always been close to art, I have been sculpting since I was 7 years old, my family encouraged me to do so.

A favela is a place where Brazilian history is still alive. We have many similarities. A funk beat for example looks a lot like the rhythm in macumba and macumba is an Afro-Brazilian religion. My references came first from my lifestyle in the favela and my learning in Candomblé. I was pregnant at 17 years old like a lot of the girls in favela, I was supported by the black community in Brazil. I want to tell the world what ubuntu means.

Yes, of course, hair is an important symbol to the religion, I’m still learning and I'm always impressed with new discoveries.

I faced and still face many external rejections that try to make me swallow, but I believe a lot in orí (head in Yoruba) the place where all the strengths and the weaknesses are kept. I strive to live surrounded by people who think like me, creating art to understand the world, and at the same time returning to society with patience and dialectic to contextualise with facts the naturalness of our black world.

I wrote a film script which mixes documentary images, sculptures and other artwork and 3D interactions. We will start recording in March.

The recognition has brought me opportunities in the fashion market and also the respect of seeing me as more than a hairdresser, hair tells the story of civilisations. I intend to make room for black aesthetics and art in the market, both for me and for other Afro-Brazilian artists.

For sure. In addition to the film bringing [forward] more than 30 black artists and professionals, I am also constantly sought after by other artists who tell me about my trajectory being a reference, because of this search I am studying the creation of a project that aims to launch new artists to the market and use the platform of sales in NFT to move money fast to invest in the creative needs of each artist.

Yes, and I always try to bring new stories when I have the opportunity.

Actually, I use other materials, such as woven hair, plaster and even metal. I'm always exploring new techniques and raw materials. I like to reuse materials and use things I find in nature.

Yes, these spaces organised by cis men have mostly the straight male target audience and are rarely comfortable for all bodies, even black spaces of black music, have been dominated by the white Brazilian elite. I hope that in July I will be able to bring together the 10 artists that I have been curating with my team, all women and queer people.

I donated 90% of the funds to the institution, a floor for the bia, a project from Bianca Kalutor, the initiative focused on buying a shelter to support trans narratives in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. They are open to donation: and 10% from the money goes to the artist in the photo, Diameyka Odara, a Brazilian singer. I believe in income redistribution and people's awareness, crises should never be experienced alone and that's why art should be on the market, that's what I believe.