Museu Vassouras to present work by Instituto Sertão Negro featured in the 36th Bienal de São Paulo

The opening of the installation Sertões: diálogos da 36ª Bienal de São Paulo will take place on September 26 at Museu Vassouras in Vassouras, Rio de Janeiro, where it will remain on view through April 4, 2027, with free admission. The project is the result of a direct partnership between the Museum, Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, Instituto Sertão Negro, and Instituto Inhotim, and marks the first time the work has been presented outside the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion.

The installation proposes an expansion of the project that Instituto Sertão Negro developed for the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, under the curatorship of Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. Conceived as a collective dimension of the traditional artist’s notebook, the work brings together productions by artists, residents, participants, and studio collaborators in dialogue with records and objects from the Kalunga quilombola community (Goiás), the largest quilombola territory in Brazil.

At the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion, Sertão Negro took shape as an active space: a rammed-earth wall hosted botany and cooking workshops, two display cases presented the history of the project and its ongoing processes, and a public program of open studios and a film club extended into Ibirapuera Park. In Vassouras, this experience takes on new dimensions.

One of the central moments in Vassouras will be the construction of a taipa de mão wall, a traditional earthen building technique, carried out collaboratively by members of the Kalunga Quilombo (Goiás) and the São José da Serra Quilombo, in Valença, Rio de Janeiro, bringing together the ancestral knowledge of two quilombola communities from different regions of Brazil.

The installation also brings together images produced in the 1980s and 1990s and audio recordings featuring testimonies from Kalunga leaders and guardians of memory, including Deuselina Maia, Sirilo dos Santos Rosa, and Procópia dos Santos Rosa, bringing memory, territory, ancestry, and collective practices into dialogue. Dalton Paula’s video Óta Layó, commissioned by Instituto Inhotim, is also part of the exhibition and will be shown outside the institution for the first time.

“The partnership between Fundação Bienal de São Paulo and Museu Vassouras, as well as with Instituto Sertão Negro and Instituto Inhotim, is an example of what can be achieved when institutions with complementary missions come together around a shared project. This is how contemporary art expands its reach and encounters new audiences,” says Andrea Pinheiro, president of Fundação Bienal de São Paulo.

Also on September 26, Museu Vassouras will open Vozes do Vale, an exhibition developed from documentary research conducted with residents of the region, featuring works by Luiz Zerbini, Minerva Cuevas, and Rose Afefé.

“Welcoming Sertões: diálogos da 36ª Bienal de São Paulo and Vozes do Vale simultaneously represents a very important moment for Museu Vassouras. Both exhibitions emerge from territories and forms of knowledge built collectively. The installation developed by Instituto Sertão Negro, in dialogue with leaders and masters of Kalunga culture, takes on new meaning by bringing members of the Kalunga Quilombo and the São José da Serra Quilombo together in Vassouras to construct the work collectively. It is a milestone in recognizing traditional knowledge and technologies,” says Catarina Duncan, artistic director of Museu Vassouras.

Service
Sertões: diálogos da 36ª Bienal de São Paulo and Vozes do Vale
Sept 26, 2026 – Apr 4, 2027
Thu – Sun, 10 am – 6 pm
Rua Luís Pereira Werneck, 64
Praça Barão de Campo Belo, Centro
Vassouras, Brazil
free admission
museuvassouras.org.br