LITTLE AFRICAS

“Of the 7,000 constituents, I am 1”. This phrase, printed on the carnival block Cacique de Ramos’s emblem in the 1970s, attracted the visual artist Carlos Vergara’s attention to what seemed to him to be a political gesture during the toughest moment of the military dictatorship. Simultaneously running counter to the samba schools’ hierarchical structure and valuing individuality, the block was adopted and photographed by Vergara, resulting in an important exchange between contemporary art and Brazilian popular culture.