Zenit Urriola ‘Zenaida’

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A painter, printmaker, and sculptor, as well as a photographer and one of Colombia’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Ana Mercedes Hoyos focused much of her work on the Afro-Colombian community of San Basilio de Palenque. Located on the country’s Caribbean coast, across from Panama, Palenque was the first free African town in the Americas and is home to locals known as “Palenqueros,” descendants of enslaved persons who fled the area near Cartagena after a 16th century slave revolt. Described as “an entirely Afro-Latin community,” the inhabitants have preserved a distinctive matriarchal culture and a local language derived from a mix of Kikongo (a language associated with Angola and the Congo), Spanish and Portuguese. Hoyos’ work in all media (paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs) captures the vibrant Palenque community, bringing their customs to life and offering vivid glimpses of a world, a people, and a way of life that provides a rich demonstration of the African diasporic experience in the Americas. A color photograph portrait of Zenaida against a blue background. The bust portrait captures Zenaida from the chest up, her torso facing the camera but her head turned towards her right shoulder, capturing the left side of her face in profile. She is wearing a pale blue short-sleeve top with white lace ribbons edging the sleeves and up the front of the top’s shoulders. Zenaida wears a red necklace and, on her head, a yellow headscarf with red, black, white, and green zigzag patterns. On the verso, upper left corner of the photograph is the sitter’s name handwritten in pencil [Zenaida 1991].

Catalog date

1991

Recorded places

San Basilio de Palenque, Bolívar, Colombia, Latin America, South America

Recorded subjects

African American; African diaspora; Art; Communities; Photography

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