Activation – Sertão em nós: Reverberations of the Sertão Negro Artist Residency Program
On September 7, the first in a series of Sertão Negro activations will take place at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo.
Located in the Goiás savanna and structured on the principles of quilombo and terreiro, Sertão Negro has its foundations in ancestry, agroecology, vernacular architecture, and the emotional and pedagogical exchanges that are built between artists, masters, apprentices, and the surrounding community. The space hosts ongoing activities such as classes in ceramics, engraving, and agroecology, capoeira angola, and artistic residencies that promote encounters between different languages and bodies.
For the 36th 36º Bienal de São Paulo a series of activations is proposed throughout the duration of the exhibition. Each month, two moments will be dedicated to sharing practices and processes that reflect life in the Sertão: whether through body language, sound, conversation, or collective action. These are 10 sensory, educational, and performative activations that invite the public to experience, even if only for a moment, the poetic surroundings of the Complexo Sertão Negro.
The first activation, called Sertão em nós: Reverberações do Programa de Residência Artística do Sertão Negro [Sertão Negro in Us: Reverberations of the Sertão Negro Artist Residency Program], will take place on September 7 and consist of a roundtable discussion on the reverberations of quilombola knowledge and the artistic experiences shared during the residencies promoted by Sertão Negro. The meeting will feature the participation of three artists who have already completed residencies at the institution. To broaden perspectives, Lucilene Kalunga, a quilombola leader, will participate, bringing the communities’ vision of how this knowledge echoes and transforms their territories of origin. Mediated by Melissa Alves, the conversation proposes an affective exchange about the crossings of the territory, the power of ancestral practices in the arts, and the ways in which these experiences reverberate in the present and in the possible futures of each of the participants.
Lucilene Kalunga is a Kalunga quilombola and was coordinator of the Youth Parliament, a program of the Chamber of Deputies that aims to encourage high school students to discuss politics, citizenship, popular participation, and representative democracy. She also served as Municipal Secretary for Racial Equality in the municipality of Cavalcante in Goiás between 2009 and 2010 and as Coordinator of the Human Rights Commission of the Goiânia City Council.
Melissa Alves is an architect and urban planner from UFRJ and a curator with s at Parque Lage, SESC, IMS-Rio, and through her experiences as she crosses different territories. She is also completing a specialization in Architecture, Education, and Society at Escola da Cidade – SP. Moving between the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro and the Goiás cerrado, her work focuses on historical-cultural heritage, urban ancestries, and art education.
Service
Activation – Sertão em nós: Reverberations of the Sertão Negro Artist Residency Program
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
September 7, 2025
Sunday, 12:30 pm
Ground Floor
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
Ibirapuera Park, gate 3
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n
São Paulo, SP
free admission