A Black home becomes an academy in Império Serrano’s new parade float, closing the show and honoring Black knowledge in its Conceição Evaristo tribute.
The “A Black Home Is Also an Academy” float
Unveiled on Thursday (5), the float titled “A Black Home Is Also an Academy” was designed by carnavalesco Renato Esteves for the storyline “Ponciá Evaristo Flor do Mulungu,” a tribute to Brazilian writer Conceição Evaristo.
It appears in the parade’s fifth chapter, Escrevivências. There, it serves as the procession’s intellectual and symbolic culmination, framing Black knowledge as legitimate scholarship forged through lived experience and community.
An ancestral academy built from lived writing
Inspired by Casa Escrevivência, a project created by Conceição Evaristo, the float reimagines a Black home as a palace of living knowledge. In that vision, the favela, samba, terreiros, home, and street become rightful sites of thought—where orality, memory, the body, and everyday life shape distinct philosophies.
At the same time, the concept flips the usual hierarchy: it is not formal academia that legitimizes Black knowledge; it is Black knowledge that expands what “academia” can mean, says the Império Serrano artist.
“What this float asserts is that Black knowledge is born from life and has always existed, even when formal institutions systematically tried to delegitimize it. The Black home becomes an academy because that is where people think, create, pass on knowledge, and build critical thought” — Renato Esteves, carnavalesco of Império Serrano.
Samba as collective knowledge
Inside this home-turned-academy, samba takes center stage as a form of collective intellectual work. The idea elevates samba schools as spaces of popular education and knowledge production.
So the float also argues that knowledge is a contested terrain. In Renato Esteves’ view, new narratives can—and should—be written from experience, memory, and escrevivência.
When Império Serrano hits the avenue
Known as the “Little King of Madureira,” the school is in its final stretch toward Carnival 2026. Império Serrano will be the fourth group to parade on Saturday (14) at the Marquês de Sapucaí, competing for the Série Ouro title (Rio’s second-tier league).
Service
Event: Império Serrano parade (Série Ouro) — Carnival 2026
Date: Saturday, 14
Order: 4th school to parade
Venue: Marquês de Sapucaí
Photo: Courtesy, Thyago Andrade/Império Serrano
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