Questioning the canonical history of architecture and shedding light on long-invisible spatial practices, Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares propose the exhibition “Terra” [Earth], at the Brazilian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023. "It's our way of shaking things up," say the curators, who turn their attention to ancestral ways of dealing with the land, aiming for more fair and complete possibilities for the present and future.
Addressing "earth" in all its meanings, the curators overlay issues related to soil and territory with the planetary problems. They propose an approach to reparations and decoloniality - emerging in Brazil - with broad topics such as decarbonization and the environment, decisive in the contemporary global debate. The Brazilian Pavilion titled Terra [Earth], won the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, on Saturday 20th of May, selected by a jury comprising Italian architect and curator Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli as president, Nora Akawi, Thelma Golden, Tau Tavengwa, and Izabela Wieczorek.
Divided into two galleries, entitled “De-colonizing the Canon” and “Places of Origin, Archeologies of the Future”, the pavilion building is transformed into a site-specific installation. It receives a Sankofa fence on the façade and fabrics crafted by Alaká weavers on the inside. To complete the installation, the building's flooring will be covered with soil, creating a kind of terreiro: an invitation to visitors to step on common ground.
We talked to Gabriela and Paulo about the pavilion project and how it relates to the Brazilian and global context. Read below.
Romullo Baratto (ArchDaily): The Biennale curator, Lesley Lokko, said that "the history of architecture is not wrong, but incomplete." How does “Terra” relate to “The Laboratory of the Future”?
Gabriela de Matos: Architecture history is incomplete because our focus has always been on architecture production in the Global North: Europe, the United States etc. I believe that our proposal relates directly to “The Laboratory of the Future”, as it presents an architecture production that is not even recognized as architectural production. So, besides proposing another way of understanding these experiences, we also seek to expand architecture based on other histories and cultures.
Paulo Tavares: Architecture has other stories to tell. Stories that have not been told, that have not been made visible, that have not been narrated because they were somehow suppressed by canonical architecture narratives. So, “Terra” pavilion is also a way of presenting these other stories in a Brazilian context. The spatial practices we present, besides often not being considered architectural productions, have also been marginalized in the representation of national artistic and cultural traditions. In a country formed by such cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity as Brazil, it is necessary to consider these other narratives. This is, the other stories, the other architectures, the other memorials and the other heritage. This is how we answer to the curator's question.
Victor Delaqua (ArchDaily): The pavilion's first gallery is titled “De-colonizing the Canon”. Which architectural canon do you intend to decolonize?
PT: From a general perspective of architectural history, the canon is very much related to the fact that modernism and modernity largely transformed the representation of national expressions. This is observed by how modernism and modernist legacies always appear as significant identity markers. In Venice, this is done through the Brazilian pavilion itself, which is a modernist building designed by Henrique E. Mindlin and Giancarlo Palanti. In this context, it seemed important to us to tell these other stories and problematize the canonical narrative, which is the narrative of the modern capital, Brasilia. All the aspirations of a modern Brazil were represented by the city, a symbol of modernity and the future of the country. There is a historiographical and ideological construction around Brasilia. This paints the city as a place of occupation of the territory, of taking Brazilian territory as a sign of modernity.
In our curatorial project, we aim to look at these territories in a way that differs from the hegemonic canonical narrative, highlighting the ancestral presence of quilombola and indigenous peoples who occupied these territories long before. Telling other stories also means challenging canonical narratives, and it is no coincidence that we exhibit Brasília again. A project that has already been exhaustively exposed, but presented here from a different perspective, so that we look at the same history, but with a view that allows for other interpretations.
GM: In addition to this other way of seeing Brasilia and questioning the canon, we also question the perpetuation of this canon. Not only in terms of chronological location but also in the sense that we continue to educate architects with the same references. We continue to perpetuate this canon. So, through the “Terra” pavilion, we also raise a debate focused on architecture education and training.
VD: The video "O Sacudimento da Casa da Torre e o Sacudimento da Maison des Esclaves em Gorée" by Ayrson Heráclito showcases ancestral gestures to ward off the eguns and ghosts of colonialism from these buildings. This act seems to be a metaphor for the curatorial proposal: shaking off modernity and architecture canon. What is the importance of this artwork in the field of art and how do you see it in relation to the rest of the exhibition?
GM: The first time I saw this artwork I was extremely shocked because everything we question about decolonizing architecture and giving it a new meaning is contained in this work – which is also an experience. When we were curating the exhibition, this work came as a synthesis of everything presented in the pavilion, in a very performative and artistic way.
It opens the second gallery because it is from this shaking that we present all the other works and content of the exhibition. It is like a starting point. What Ayrson does in those two buildings shown in the video, Paulo and I do in the pavilion, with its grounding. The pavilion grounding becomes a starting point for everything presented in our curatorial project.
PT: Much of what we present in the pavilion speaks about reparation, retrieval, and reconstruction, and this artwork by Ayrson dialogues with that by questioning how we will deal with the colonial legacy in architecture. That is also what we do by interpreting the Brazilian Pavilion not as a neutral space but as something saturated with certain narratives, certain memories, and certain notions of nationality. As we elaborated on the curatorial proposal, we realized that we could not take the pavilion as a neutral object. Instead, we should take it as a curatorial object.. Thus, in this site-specific installation designed by the curatorial team, which we call "Aterramento", we bring three elements that redefine the building: the Sankofa grids that reconfigure the modernist facade; a large grounding plan that transforms the pavilion into a kind of terreiro and anchors the space in the earth; and finally, a series of fabrics commissioned for the weavers of Alaká, which adorn the pavilion in a similar way to the flags of terreiro barracks.
So, in a way, grounding is our way of shaking things up. It is also an invitation to the public to step on the ground, feel the earth, and be on the ground. This shaking may relate more to the Brazilian context – in the sense of revisiting narratives – but it also has a global and universal meaning, which is to understand the earth as a planet, as a common soil, as the home of all life.
GM: It is a proposal to the public that says: "Well, if you want to understand what we are showing here, it is important to step on the ground." It is another way of thinking, with everyone stepping in the same way and in the same place. In the book "Futuro Ancestral," Ailton Krenak talks about our disconnection from the earth because we are conditioned to think it is dirty. How can we expect entire generations that associate the earth with dirt to connect with urgent environmental and climate issues? This is a global reflection because it connects to many contexts.
Furthermore, it is also an invitation to think about the earth as an ancient and future technology simultaneously. An invitation to think about how we can associate it with today's technologies and build more respectfully with the environment.
PT: The earth has no scale: it is soil, it is ground, it is local, but at the same time, it is transversal, it is cosmic and global. So, it was very interesting to think about the earth from this trans-scalar dimension. It is very local, very rooted, and talks about the country, about belonging, and also about an issue that affects everyone.
RB: I would like to hear from you about the “Places of Origin, Archeologies of the Future” gallery, where you present five essential places: Tia Ciata's House in Little Africa in Rio de Janeiro, the Tava in Rio Grande do Sul, the terreiros in Salvador, the Agroforestry Systems of the Rio Negro, and the Iauaretê waterfall. What led to this selection?
GM: The five chosen places are related to this understanding of earth that we propose. For example, Tia Ciata's House in Little Africa was a diasporic Afro-Brazilian cultural resistance where various artistic expressions culminated, including samba. The first samba in Brazil was recorded there. It is therefore a very strong cultural core linked to that territory.
The terreiros in Salvador likewise have a very strong relationship with the territory itself - many are even made out of earth. But they also show a very direct connection to the issue of preserving large portions of the forest. Not only for preservation purposes but something prior to that, in a sense of belonging. A belonging where everything and everyone matters. The curatorial approach raises this point: Earth as home to both human and non-human life.
PT: We are also talking about the Traditional Agricultural Systems of the Rio Negro, the Tava - which is the Museum of the Missions, which the Guarani people refer to as the Stone House - and the Iauaretê waterfall of the Tukano, Arawak, and Maku people. It is important to emphasize that these are memorial places. They are all considered heritage by different national institutions, and some also by UNESCO. Our research investigated what these reference and memorial places are, and what may or may not be considered heritage. These places point to another relationship with the land. These are ways of dealing with and relating to the earth. In our understanding, they are closely related to the future of the planet.
For example, the terreiros show a close relationship with the forest and the waters - things that modern environmentalism defends, but which have already been established for a long time. Similarly, the Iauaretê waterfall is seen as a reference point for Western Amazonians, but in a hegemonic vision, it is just a natural object. We are talking about places that mark a deeply land-related ancestry but also point to what we call a previously existing future - a future that is already present and has been here for a long time.
In this sense, the very idea of heritage is questioned. UNESCO recognizes Brasilia as heritage. We question the history of this heritage and bring other heritage references, pointing to a horizon of reparation where the earth is home to all life.
VD: Many ancestral architectures are based on non-hegemonic cosmologies and cultures, hence unknown to most of the public. How can these works be read in their contexts?
PT: This question sheds light on heritage. How architecture is defined is always related to what is understood as artistic and cultural heritage. And although the projects we are bringing are expressions or representations of an architecture that is usually not perceived as architecture, they have a very strong spatial grounding as they are places of memory, places of reference, or what we can call places of origin.
If we follow contemporary discussions in the field of architecture, which relate to policies and question the legacies of colonialism and racism rooted in public memory through monuments, I think we are deeply engaged with this historical context present in the discipline. In this sense, we want architecture as a practice to take a role in the world, and the pavilion speaks a lot about repairing. We hope this resonates with both specialist and general audiences, as we believe sensitivity to these issues is in the air.
GM: I would also say that this is the perfect moment to highlight these other perspectives. Lesley Lokko invites us to learn about African diaspora experiences. Some of the ones we bring here are directly related to that.
RB: Do you see this work being carried out at any other time in the last four years? I think it's unlikely. I think it's also an opportune moment in our national context.
PT: This is a pavilion that speaks of reconstruction and repair, implicitly or explicitly. It is impressive how certain events in Brazilian contemporaneity happened in dialogue with our curatorial process. The most striking example may be the campaign the terreiro Casa Branca do Engenho Velho ran against the threat of loss of territory due to real estate speculation in Salvador. For the last four years, nothing has been done by the authorities; a movement to stop speculation that threatens the terreiro has only recently emerged. In an interview, Gabriela asks, "How can we look to the future if we don't know where we came from?" I think the pavilion is in close dialogue with this.
GM: This curatorial proposal was designed last October, which raised a lot of fear. We did not have this elected government, there was no Ministry of Culture or Ministry of Racial Equality. It was a shot in the dark, as we could present this pavilion in a completely different and less receptive context.
RB: You talk about the relationship between decolonization and decarbonization. How do heritage, past, and present relate to contemporary urban, territorial, and environmental issues?
PT: When Sônia Guajajara took office as Minister of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, she said that "the future is ancestral." This phrase has accompanied us from the very beginning of this work. The experiences of other non-Western philosophical and cultural matrices, presented in the pavilion, bring this idea very powerfully. As Lesley Lokko herself has explained, the decarbonization of the planet is inevitably related to the decolonization of our thoughts and architecture.
Our cultural project responds to this in a very direct way, especially when we observe that the territories under the custody of indigenous and quilombola populations are the territories where the protection of the land as the home of all common life occurs most efficiently, as demonstrated by various national and international research. But it is important to emphasize that this protection is done in an active way, which implies spatial production, not in the sense that everything there is untouchable. On the contrary, it is a protection that takes shape through cultivation and landscape design.
The pavilion recognizes these spatial practices as landscape design, as architecture, and as space production that foster biodiversity. This is essential because when something is placed in a pavilion at the Architecture Biennale, it is acknowledged as a relevant architectural experience. Therefore, our work consists of recognizing these practices as fundamental practices for the future of both Brazil and the planet.
VD: Increasingly, we recognize the fundamental role of other agents who are not architects in the construction of space. How does your contribution interact with the future of this discipline that expands into invisibilized places and practices?
GM: I believe that for a long time, we ignored these other practices because they didn't follow the pattern we understood as architecture. And we know exactly which productions were left out, don't we? So, I think that our curatorial work contributes in this direction, in bringing together, giving a place, and understanding these other productions, and also acknowledging that architecture relates to many other disciplines. Things become more complex and complete when diverse voices contribute.
It is important to understand that our country was built on a racist foundation that removed from knowledge production spaces people who effectively built the country. The enslaved workforce responsible for the construction of colonial architecture, which we so admire and exhibit to the world, is Black and African. They were taken from a place where some architectural practices were already millennium-old, while Brazilian colonial architecture was just emerging. We have much to learn from our history, and our curatorial proposal is just an initial step that we hope can pave the way for other works that further deepen this research toward a less elitist and more diverse architecture.
PT: What is shown in an architecture exhibition? What is important to exhibit at a Biennale? Usually, it presents the state of the art of contemporary architecture, saying "Look, this is what has been relevant in the last two years." This is the most classic format, so to speak.
I believe that our curatorial gesture, of bringing these other architectures and spatialities, invites architects and visitors to reflect on what is to come. But instead of presenting what has been done in the last two years, what would be called the avant-garde of architecture, we show spaces that have been there for a long time, some for centuries. They indicate a possible future, a potential future. We are often asked about the importance of rescuing the past, but we are not rescuing any past; we are talking, of course, about things that are ancestral, often linked to temporalities that escape Western chronology, but that are experiences of the contemporary. We speak of a future that is both ancestral and present at the same time.
RB: This image of non-linear time where ancestry, contemporaneity, and future seem to mingle is very beautiful. The works you bring to the galleries explore this notion in various ways.
GM: Exactly! Because we realized that a linear view of time doesn’t work. It is, at least, irresponsible and comfortable because it doesn't propose movement. If the problem is still to come, it means I don't need to do anything now. This is the mindset that guided previous generations. What we propose here is to displace this understanding because a transition in our ways of thinking and practicing architecture is urgently needed. Follow ArchDaily's coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023: The Laboratory of the Future.
