Roundtable with Miriam Alves – Souffles: On Deep Listening and Active Reception

On September 13, there will be a roundtable with the Bienal’s education and mediation team, the curatorial assistant for the 36th Bienal André Pitol, and Miriam Alves about the first volume of the educational publication and the first Invocation in Marrakech, Souffles: On deep listening and active reception. The event will take place from 3 pm to 5 pm at the Bloomberg space on the third floor. It is part of Conjugations – Education, which offer activities inspired by playing, dancing, singing, gaming, and storytelling, inviting the public to an active and playful immersion in the exhibition, deepening practices of humanity and valuing diverse ways of being and living together.

The first conversation circle on the Invocations investigates how the circularity and precariousness of breathing, Gnawa music as a way of being, Sufi cultures, and listening as a practice of coexistence, as well as the creation of places and spaces, relate to the Brazilian educational context. The conversation will also feature the writer Miriam Alves, who contributed to volume 1 of the educational publication with the text “On Graphos and Ofó”, which addresses the practice of writing in dialogue with orality, memory, and everyday life.

Miriam Alves is a writer, social worker, and teacher. She made her literary debut in 1982 in the anthology Axé: Antologia contemporânea de poesia negra brasileira and in issue 5 of Cadernos Negros, a publication organized by the historic Quilombhoje collective. She has published two books of poetry: Momentos de busca (1983) and Estrelas no dedo (1985). She is also the author of the novels Bará na trilha do vento (2015) and Mareia (2019), the short story collections Mulher mat(r)iz (2011) and Juntar pedaços (2021), as well as the essay BrasilAfro autorrevelado (2010). Together with Arnaldo Xavier and Cuti, she wrote the play Terramara (1988).

André Pitol is an art researcher, curator, and professor, with a PhD from the University of São Paulo (USP). He teaches at École Intuit Lab São Paulo and at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). He has written essays for e-flux, The Brooklyn Rail, Photographies, Mídia Ninja, and ZUM. He curated Edival Ramosa – New Totemic Construction (2024), was associate curator of The Parable of Progress (2022), and curatorial assistant of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo.

Service
Conversation circle with Miriam Alves – Souffles: On deep listening and active reception
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
September 13, 2025
Saturday, 3 pm
Bloomberg space, 3rd floor
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
Ibirapuera Park, gate 3
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n
São Paulo, SP