Arte nas Estações | Minas Gerais

LOCATION
Congonhas, MG
Conselheiro Lafaiete, MG
Ouro Preto, MG

CURATORSHIP
Ulisses Carrilho

CREATED BY
A-PONTE

YEAR
2023

SPONSORSHIP
Instituto Cultural Vale
Sherwin Williams
Fundo de Filantropia da Família Hees

SUPPORT
Fundação de Arte de Ouro Preto
Secretaria de Estado de Cultura e Turismo de Minas Gerais
Secretarias Municipais de Cultura de Conselheiro Lafaiete, Congonhas e Ouro Preto

The Arte nas Estações project celebrates Brazilian diversity through its artistic expressions. It showcases culture, history, and entertainment across different locations in the country through powerful exhibitions and transformative educational initiatives.

In its debut, Arte nas Estações presented three selections from the collection of the International Museum of Naïve Art of Brazil – the largest in the world in its segment, formed from the private collection of Lucien Finkelstein. Naïve Art is the term used to identify the production of self-taught artists who had no access to formal art education. However, we acknowledge that it is a questionable term and advocate its use to challenge notions of inferiority while highlighting the political message carried by these works.

Curated by Ulisses Carrilho, the exhibitions “Sofrência,” “Entre o Céu e a Terra,” and “A Ferro e Fogo” were held at the Paço da Misericórdia in Ouro Preto, the Museu de Congonhas in the city of Congonhas, and the Centro Cultural Maria Andrade Resende – Museu Ferroviário in Conselheiro Lafaiete. The exhibitions were simultaneously displayed over eight months across the three cities.

The exhibitions were accompanied by a comprehensive educational program based on a listening process, dialogue, and collective construction with educators and other local audiences.

Educational Program

The educational program of Arte nas Estações aims to develop relationships, dialogues, and bonds with the school community – teachers, students, and educators –, as well as with people with disabilities, local residents, and tourists visiting the cities.

This program is structured around three main actions: guided visits, teacher and educator training, and cultural programming in coordination with the local territory. All actions stemmed from a listening process, collective construction, and dialogue with the participating audiences.

The program seeks to contribute to the formation and experimentation of cultural ties present in the artworks and also in the local context. Attentive to the curatorial selections, we built connections and engagement with everyday life, work practices, festivities, rites, religious practices, and landscapes that connected the exhibition program to expressions of joy, leisure, and love.

Digital Experience

After being displayed in Ouro Preto, the exhibition Sofrência arrived in the Metaverse to break the physical boundaries of the exhibition space. It was developed by the creative team of Museu.xyz, using the free 3D modeling software Blender and the Unity 3D game engine.

The exhibition is hosted on the virtual worlds platform Spatial, which allows users to connect their crypto wallets, create virtual environments, display NFTs, acquire and use tokenized wearables and avatars. It is important to highlight that the platform was chosen for its accessibility, allowing even those unfamiliar with the Web3 concept to access it via email or social accounts (Apple, Microsoft, and Google).

The exhibition follows the digital twin concept. The physical space, exhibition design, artwork placement, scenography, wall colors, and video projection are exactly the same as in the original exhibition. The visitor, or rather their avatar, will navigate an identical version of the Paço da Misericórdia in Ouro Preto, where the first installation of Sofrência took place.