Ibeji

This artwork was inspired by the history of the Ibejis, and created in celebration of Black Consciousness Day in Brazil, observed on November 20th.

Robinho Santana, born in Diadema in 1983, is a visual artist, researcher and experimental musician. He has academic training in Design and Photography and his work dialogues with the compulsory duty to express his relationship with the life and culture of his people.
In his works, in addition to recognizing himself, he seeks the plural and dignified representation of women and peripheral black men, making them the protagonists of his art.

And in this work (Ibeji), Robinho Santana deals with the theme of the "Ibejis", where he builds his reinterpretation of the myth and the symbology of the Yoruba twin brothers, expressed in the figure of two black Brazilian children. Ibejis can also represent an ancestral African perspective of childhood as opposed to Western perspectives, where infantilization necessarily means something pejorative.
Robinho also contextualizes how the ibejis are interpreted in Brazil, rethinking human existence as non-Manichean dualities, given that the Yoruba twins are the representatives of luck and chance and of the correlation between feminine and masculine.
Thus, ibejis represent, in addition to ancestry, a possibility for the future, represented by two children in all their potential and possibilities.