Focusing on the Amazon, CCVM opens a new group exhibition

Looking at the artistic achievements of the largest biome in the world, the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center opens the new edition of the Occupy CCVM exhibition to the public on Tuesday, 20, at 19:00. With the theme Amazon in Focus, the exhibition presents the visual arts projects approved in the eponymous public notice in the first half of 2024.

The work is a continuation of the mapping of productions developed by Amazonian artists about the territory and, especially, about the subject that inhabits it. “The excerpt presented in the 2024 edition of Ocupa CCVM goes beyond the portrait. The selected works say a little more about the seen and the unseen of Amazonian places and corners. Relations with the unknown, with the divine and with the uncontrollable appear as a founding element, imparting the urgency necessary to address the complexity of the territory of the Legal Amazon,” says Gabriel Gutierrez, director of the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center.

Five artists will compose the exhibition. An indigenous artist from Xapuri, Acre, Clementino Almeida (Tino Txai) takes us on a journey through the universe of shamanic aesthetics on canvases painted with the urban graffiti technique, in the work Amazônia em Colores. Throughout his career, Tino practiced activism in defense of the forest, remembering the importance of native peoples, and figures such as Chico Mendes, in the struggle to keep the forest standing.

With Nature, Art and Sustainability, Francelino Moraes Mesquita from Pará transgresses the use of the material of the Miriti, known and used to make toys and devotional objects for the Feast of the Círio de Nazaré, giving shape to sculptures. Mother Board, by Fabiano Carvalho from Acre, establishes a metaphorical connection between the complexity of technology and the harmony of Mother Nature by integrating motherboard fragments into natural landscapes.

Based on the flag fishing buoy, a common instrument of the rivers and seas of Maranhão, and the Cazumbá do Bumba Meu Boi, Thiago Fonseca (MA) expands the painting space, creating an immersive altar-shaped installation in Travessias da Encantaria.

On the ground floor, in addition to (i) memories, the Cuiabana artist Paty Wolff presents works resulting from experimentation in drawing and painting on plywood and cardboard, using acrylic paint and oily pastel chalk. The images used come from investigations in family photo albums and the artist’s need to recompose her roots and origins.

The exhibition is curated by Camila Fialho, Deyla Rabelo, Larissa Anchieta and Rose de Lima. Visitation is free. The Vale Maranhão Cultural Center is located at Rua Direita, 149, São Luís Historic Center.