Ayrson Heráclito is an Ogã of Jeje Mahi, artist, professor, and curator. He holds a PhD in Communication and Semiotics from PUC-SP and an MA in Visual Arts from UFBA. His work highlights Afro-Brazilian roots and their sacred elements, projecting actions and practices that compose the history and culture of Black communities. In 2026, he participates in the 61st Venice Biennale.

His work spans installation, performance, photography, and audiovisual media, exploring connections between the African continent and Black diasporas in the Americas. The body plays a central role in his research, which mobilizes ritual references—especially from Candomblé—such as palm oil, meat, sugar, and blood, relating them to historical and architectural heritage associated with the transatlantic slave trade.

Between 2008 and 2011, he developed the series Bori, a term meaning “offering to the head.” The performance presents a ritual in which Heráclito offers foods associated with twelve orixás, including corn, popcorn, okra, rice, and fava beans, placed around the heads of performers lying on straw mats and dressed in white.

Another significant milestone in his career is Transmutação da Carne, initiated in 1994. The work emerged from a document describing the torture inflicted by plantation owners on enslaved people. In 2015, Heráclito re-presented the work during the exhibition Terra Comunal by Marina Abramović at Sesc Pompeia in São Paulo.

Among his key research projects is Sacudimentos, addressing the slave trade between Bahia and Senegal. Presented at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, the work consists of videos and photographs documenting cleansing rituals performed at the House of Slaves on Gorée Island and at a former sugar plantation in Brazil, confronting the ghosts of colonial history.

Heráclito has participated in the Bamako Photography Biennale (2015), the Luanda Triennial (2010), and the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). In 2022, he presented the solo exhibition Ayrson Heráclito: Yorùbáiano at Estação Pinacoteca in São Paulo. He was one of the chief curators of the 3rd Bahia Biennial and guest curator of the section “Routes and Transes: Africas, Jamaica and Bahia” in the project Afro-Atlantic Histories, presented at MASP and Instituto Tomie Ohtake in 2018.

He received the Dakar Artistic Residency Award from Sesc_Videobrasil in partnership with Raw Material Company, Senegal. In 2023, he presented the installation Floresta de Infinitos, in collaboration with Tiganá Santana, at the 35th São Paulo Biennial.

His works are part of collections including Museum der Weltkulturen (Frankfurt), MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, MASP, Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba), Videobrasil, the Art Institute of Chicago, Inhotim, Sesc São Paulo, and the José Olympio and Itaú collections.