Activation – Sertão Negro – Gravura Sertaneja: collage engraving based on plants from the Cerrado region of Goiás as activators of ancestral knowledge

On October 15, the workshop Gravura Sertaneja: collage engraving based on plants from the Cerrado region of Goiás as activators of ancestral knowledge will take place as part of a series of activities organized by Sertão Negro at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo. The activity will take place from 3 pm to 6 pm at Sertão Negro’s work on the first floor.

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 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 activation proposes experimenting with the collagraphy technique as a way to activate and learn about the ancestral knowledge linked to the medicinal plants of the Cerrado in Goiás. Based on the collection of native species carried out in Sertão Verde, a project by Sertão Negro and Ateliê e Escola de Artes, the activity proposes an artistic experience that intertwines memory, identity, and territory. The practice of engraving by addition becomes a space for listening and connecting with the mysteries of the earth, revealing the Cerrado as a living, healing, and ancestral being. The choice of collogravure as a mediator refers to Cuban artist Belkis Ayón, her works are poetic, like the act of engraving mysteries, processes, and secrets of healing. They are marks on the skin, engraving the stories of identity and culture unique to a community. With the mediation of art educators Xica and Augusto César, participants will create matrices with leaves and natural elements, resulting in the collective production of an album of engravings that celebrates traditional knowledge and the black presence in the sertão.

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Activation – Sertão Negro –Gravura Sertaneja: collage engraving based on plants from the Cerrado region of Goiás as activators of ancestral knowledge
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
October 15, 2025
Wednesday, 3 pm
Ground Floor
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
Ibirapuera Park, gate 3
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n
São Paulo, SP
free admission