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[exhibition design]

Giselle Beiguelman:
Botannica Tirannica

2022

Jewish Museum of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

architecture: Helena Cavalheiro

curatorship: Ilana Feldman 

 

Garden of Resilience, Giselle Beiguelman, 2022

Photo: Julia Thompson

 

 

The Botannica Tirannica exhibition originated from Beiguelman's artistic research investigating the relationship between hegemonic science, classical botany, and the historically present colonialist imagination in forms of nature domination.

 

With the aim of creating a genealogy of prejudice in the fields of art and science, Beiguelman employed an Artificial Intelligence program to cross and combine different species with discriminatory names. The process resulted in various works, including: a series of 18 images composing the work Flora mutandis, five videos structuring the work Flora rebellis, an image called Errante, a film essay (A Genealogy of Prejudice), and a real Garden of Resilience, where plants with derogatory names are cultivated—the artist subverts the common and ambivalent uses of technology, unleashing new poetic fields and new political encounters.

 

Regarding the exhibition design, the project encompassed both the overall spatial conception of the exhibition and the development of specific furniture for the contents. Concerning the installation Garden of Resilience, which occupied the center of the room, the proposal was to create a spatiality in which the tradition of the natural history museum and the contemporaneity of a technological laboratory could engage in dialogue. To achieve this, an industrial shelving system was used as a base, to which accessories specifically developed for the installation were added. In a circular format, the piece had a striking shape, while simultaneously engaging with the existing heptagonal form of the venue.

 

technical information

 

client: Jewish Museum of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil 

exhibition area: 175 m² 

opening: May 2022

 

curatorship: Ilana Feldman 

research: Giselle Beiguelman and Sylvia Beiguelman

architecture: Helena Cavalheiro 

graphic design: Maria Cau Levy and Karime A. Zaher [assistant]

production: Mariana Lorenzi [coordination], Carla Ogawa, Patrícia Prado Betti Queiroz and Fernando Gallo

lightning design: Fernanda Carvalho 

architecture construction: METRO

artworks installation: Manuseio 

framing: Jacarandá Montagens

lighting installation: Santa Luz

audiovisual equipment: MAXI Áudio Luz Imagem

educational programme: Sapoti

photos: Julia Thompson

helena cavalheiro . in between art and architecture . ©2024  

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