Abstract
This essay examines Brazilian artist Ayrson Heráclito's two-channel video installation "O sacudimento da Casa da Torre e o sacudimento da Maison des Esclaves em Gorée" (2015), which documents ritual cleansings performed at two sites linked by the transatlantic slave trade: the Maison des Esclaves in Senegal and Casa da Torre in Brazil. The authors analyze how Heráclito employs the Afro-Brazilian purification ritual of "sacudimento" to confront and expel the lingering spirits of colonial oppressors rather than their victims. Drawing on the concept of visual orikis (Yoruba poetic forms), the essay explores how Heráclito's work creates temporal and spatial bridges that connect divided histories across the Atlantic, particularly through sacred trees found at both sites. The analysis positions Heráclito's approach within the tradition of strategic revelation and concealment expressed in the Candomblé principle of practices that occur "from the gate inward" versus "from the gate outward." By examining this ritual diptych, the authors demonstrate how Heráclito's work transforms colonial spaces into sites of healing while revealing landscapes as archives of both violence and spiritual resistance.