Talk – Vilanismo – CuradoTRETA, stratagems and conspiracies: Brazilian contemporary art from the margins and its challenges

On October 11, the talk CuradoTRETA, stratagems and conspiracies: Brazilian contemporary art from the margins and its challenges, by Vilanismo with the curator Malu Barros and the artist Raphael Escobar, will take place. Participating in this conversation are Ramo and Renan Teles, from Vilanismo. The event will run from 3 pm to 5 pm in the Invocations space, on the second floor.

CuradoTRETA emerges as a space for conversation and mapping of a research methodology in curatorship and its articulations, actions, and challenges for the uncommon labor categories of the contemporary art circuit. This dialogue is based on the curatorial and research history of the Vilanismo brotherhood, with its artists, researchers, and educators, all of whom are accomplices in this intellectual production. CuradoTRETA was born as a proposal to act in the interstice of the contemporary art circuit based on abundant, collective, and community thinking. Instead of accepting fragmented imposed concepts, the project affirms the strength of collectivity-fraternity, placing images as a field of dispute and conquest. Inspired by African, African-American, Indigenous, Latinx, and Afro-Brazilian cosmoperceptions, CuradoTRETA proposes a holistic way of thinking and doing that resists identity capitalism and colonial logics of competition that attempt to reduce artists to a “single black” or a homogeneous mass. On the contrary, it embraces the diversity of experiences and values as creative power. Structured around the triad of Healing, Cultivation, and Treta, the initiative presents itself as a movement that swings in the face of the perversities of the system, defending the community and opening space for new forms of existence and creation.

Malu Barros is an architect and urban planner, researcher, and independent curator. Constantly seeking interdisciplinary approaches to the city, she moves between theory and criticism, urbanism, and architectural culture. She holds a PhD in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo [FAU-USP], with a joint doctoral period at the University of Toronto, and a master’s degree in Geography from the Federal University of Espírito Santo [PPGG/UFES]. She is the founder and project director of vi.bra.tion, an interdisciplinary platform for research and cultural practices, and cofounder of laboratório noturno, an independent group for experimentation and politics of the night. She teaches urbanism at Escola da Cidade. Maria Luiza expands her practice through DJ sets, exhibitions, lectures, publications, and other creative collaborations.

Raphael Escobar is graduated in visual arts and post-graduating in Brazilian studies: society, education and culture. Since 2008 he works with non-formal education in contexts of social vulnerability or political disputes, such as Fundação CASA, Cracolândia and Hostels. He also helped found several collectives and social movements in the Crackland region as an activist. His research is guided by class relations, intending to dissolve a moral logic of society in relation to homeless people, drug users and peripheral groups. In this way, he uses the institutions and his work as tools of promotion and education, mediating the spaces inside and outside the circuit. Already participated in exhibitions such as Contramemória, Theatro Muncipal (2022); 36th Panorama of Brazilian Art, MAM São Paulo (2019); Quem não luta tá morto, Museu de Arte do Rio (2018); São Paulo is not a city: inventions of the center, Sesc 24 de Maio (2017); Metrópole: Paulistana Experience, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2017); X Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo, Centro Cultural São Paulo (São Paulo, 2013).

Vilanismo (founded in 2021, São Paulo) is a collective of twelve Black men working to create spaces of resistance and affirmation within the art circuit. They value ancestral knowledge, Afro-Indigenous experiences, and collective construction, prioritizing autonomy and the creation of sustainable practices. In their actions, they reject stereotypes and historical fetishes imposed on Black bodies, subverting normative expectations and celebrating cultural abundance. The group has participated in events such as Baile do Vilanismo (Edifício Misericórdia, São Paulo) and the talk-performance Black Masculinities (Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo). The collective currently includes Diego Crux, Ramo, Renan Teles, Carinhoso, Guto Oca, Rodrigo Zaim, Rafa Black, Robson Marques, Denis Moreira, and Daniel Ramos.

This participation is supported by The Order of New Arts.

Service
Talk – Vilanismo – CuradoTRETA, stratagems and conspiracies: Brazilian contemporary art from the margins and its challenges
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
October 11, 2025
Sat, 3 pm
Invocations space, 2nd floor
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
Ibirapuera Park, Gate 3
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n
São Paulo, SP
free admission