An archive acquired through the LLILAS Benson Archiving Black América–Black Diaspora Archive initiative documents scenes from prison visiting days.
Brazil is among the top incarcerators of women worldwide, with Black women accounting for 65 percent of this population. The largest women’s prison in the country is the Penitenciaria Feminina Santana (Santana Women’s Penitentiary) in São Paulo. Every weekend, families of incarcerated women arrive to visit their loved ones on the inside.
In the archive Dias de Visita/Visiting Days: Strategies for Connections, Affections and Black Encounters in Latin America’s Largest Women’s Penitentiary, LLILAS PhD student Ana Luiza Biazeto has assembled images and oral histories from her visits to the barracas, where she interviewed family members of incarcerated women, as well as some of the people who set up and run the tents.
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