Activation – Sertão Negro – Pieces of Sertão: art, memory, and bioconstruction

On November 14, the workshop Pedaços de Sertão: arte, memória e bioconstrução [Pieces of Sertão: art, memory, and bioconstruction] 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 2 pm to 5:30 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 activity is an art-education workshop on architecture and bio-construction, inspired by the buildings of the Sertão Negro. Mediated by master builder Joeso Farias, architect Guedson Oliveira, and curator Melissa Alves, the meeting begins with a theoretical introduction on the sustainable power of rammed earth and its ancestral roots. During the practical session, participants will experiment with building small rammed earth structures using wooden forms and earth collected directly from the Sertão Negro. Each person will be able to take home a symbolic fragment of this territory, materializing the constructed memory. The proposal provokes critical reflection on urban massification and opens paths to imagine sustainable and artistic constructions that resist the erasure of traditions, strengthening emotional and cultural bonds.

Service
Activation – Sertão Negro – Pieces of Sertão: Art, Memory, and Bioconstruction
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
Nov 14, 2025
Fri, 2 pm
Ground Floor
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
Ibirapuera Park, gate 3
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n
São Paulo, SP
free admission