Terra (Earth)

Terra (Earth) is a founding motif in the narratives of the formation of Brazil. Representations of national identity were historically structured by idealised and racialised views of the tropical nature that subalternised Indigenous and Black peoples. Terra is also a founding motif in the cosmologies, philosophies and imaginaries of the Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian populations that compose the majority of the national cultural matrix. But here, terra appears in a different form—as belonging, cultivation, right and reparation—drawing ancestral and diasporic territories that refer to artistic and architectural geographies further deeper and beyond Brazil. 

Under the title Terra, the representation of the Brazilian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2023 proposes to rethink the past in order to design possible futures. Terra as ancestry and memory, as well as becoming. Terra as soil, ground, territory; but also in its global and cosmic dimensions, as common home for all life, human and non-human.

The exhibition is jointly curated by the architects Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares, and features works by the Mbya-Guarani Indigenous people; Tukano, Arawak and Maku Indigenous peoples; Alaká Weavers (Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá); Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká (Casa Branca do Engenho Velho); Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto; Ayrson Heráclito; Day Rodrigues with the collaboration of Vilma Patrícia Santana Silva (Grupo Etnicidades FAU-UFBA); Fissura collective; Juliana Vicente; Thierry Oussou and Vídeo nas Aldeias. 

The exhibition places earth both as a poetic and as a concrete element in the exhibition space. To this end, the entire pavilion will be filled with earth, in direct contact with the tradition of Indigenous territories, Quilombola dwellings and candomblé ceremonies. 

The pavilion's first gallery, called De-colonizing the canon, questions the imaginary surrounding the version that Brasília was built in the middle of nowhere, given that its Indigenous and Quilombola inhabitants had been removed from the region and pushed to the fringes with the imposition of the modernist city. The second gallery, Places of Origin, Archaeologies of the Future, turns to memories and the archaeology of ancestrality, pointing towards a post-climate change future where “de-colonization” and “decarbonization” walk hand in hand. Occupied by socio-spatial projects and practices of Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian knowledge, the curatorship brings forth essential memorial heritages that embody spatial practices towards forms of social and ecological reparation.  

For José Olympio da Veiga Pereira, commissioner of the exhibition and president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, “the Biennale Architettura is a privileged space for the discussion of the most urgent issues in architecture and urbanism. At a time when humanity is facing great challenges, the exhibition proposed by architects Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares is a way of giving visibility to practices that can contribute to the collective shaping of our future.”

About the curators
Gabriela de Matos is an Afro-Brazilian architect and urban planner who creates multidisciplinary projects with the aim of promoting and highlighting Brazilian architectural and urban culture from the perspective of race and gender. She is the founder of the project Arquitetas Negras, which maps the production of black Brazilian architects. 

Paulo Tavares explores the interfaces between architecture, visual cultures, curatorship, theory and advocacy. His designs and texts have been featured in various national and international exhibitions and publications. Tavares was co-curator of the Chicago Architecture Biennale 2019 and is currently a member of the curatorial board of the second edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennale 2023.

About Brazil's participation in the Biennale Architettura 2023 
The prerogative of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo to represent Brazil at La Biennale di Venezia is the result of a decades-long partnership with the Brazilian Federal Government as a recognition of the excellence of its work in the artistic and cultural field. 

Brazil's official representation at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition is presented by Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture.

Press information
Ginevra Berghinz, ginevra@suttoncomms.com.