Residual Flourishing
The exhibition Residual Flourishing features Isadora Canela and Gabriela Leirias, as well as a collaboration between artists Raquel Versieux and Silvia Noronha, who assess soil degradation — a consequence of unsustainable practices such as mining — as a starting point, focus on soil contamination and heterogeneity as opportunities for artistic interventions and environmental regeneration initiatives. Raquel Versieux and Silvia Noronha work at the intersection of art, ecology, and cultural memory, investigating the consequences of human actions on colonized landscapes, promoting a collection of materials. Thus, Residual Flourishing is configured as a living, collaborative process that will transform the exhibition space into a dynamic archive of interactions and reflections. Over five days, Versieux and Noronha will facilitate activities that reinterpret waste and debris, both as artistic materials and as agents of ecological change, encouraging new forms of engagement with these things. Through materials collected at the Haus der Statistik and its surroundings, the exhibition examines the characteristics of the soil as well as the consequences of its contamination, proposing these ruins as access points to both physical and historical memories and archives. The vegetation of waste emerges as a proposal by the artists to demonstrate how soils are increasingly degraded and heterogeneous — highlighting the need for engagement and coexistence with these soils. The ruins and debris are recognized not only as remnants of past actions but as archival sources of time, revealing the dynamism of the forces that shape our environments.
Isadora Canela joins the project with a lecture, in which she invites the audience to transcend traditional boundaries through reflections and processes from the exhibition "Paisagens Mineradas” (Minered Landscapes), curated by her this year at Matilha Cultural, São Paulo. Canela problematizes narratives of separation and the binarisms sustained by colonial and exploitative systems, emphasizing the notion of interconnection as fundamental in all human experiences. Isadora establishes connections between artistic practices from the global south and north, promoting discussions about new imaginaries and landscapes for a shared future. Gabriela Leirias will host the meeting “Poéticas da Terra” (Poetics of the Earth), that will investigate the notions of land and territory through contemporary Brazilian art. The meeting addresses the territory as a complex network of forces and relations, exacerbated by a persistent colonial context. Leirias highlights how artists and activists use art to illuminate and question the critical issues of the Anthropocene, fostering analyses and debates about alternative futures.
Residual Flourishing is part of the project “Devolver a Terra à Terra” (Returning the Earth to Earth), which is an ongoing project that investigates the spiritual, political, identitarian and cultural aspects of the land. The project is composed of exhibitions, film screenings and public programs that invite spectators to delve into narratives that foster nature-culture agencies. The issue of territory materializes and permeates all the works, encouraging discourse on subjectivity, coexistence, and resistance, bringing out the circumstantial geographies of Brazil as a starting point for a broader investigation in Latin America.
Curated by Viviane Tabach
Artists: Isadora Canela, Gabriela Leirias, Raquel Versieux and Silvia Noronha
Design: Anna Sukhova / The project was supported by Project Space Festival