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Reading time 2 min

Fighting wastefulness

Fábio Feldmann

Only since the late 1980s the environmental issue has become a global concern. Certainly, nowadays any citizen takes notice of environmental problems.  In Beijing, air pollution requires changes. In California, severe drought calls for measures such as water rationing. In New York, efforts are made to adapt city life to climate changes and to recover from the impacts of hurricane Sandy.

 

What about Brazil? The population in the northeastern region suffers the effects of prolonged drought, relying on water distribution by tanker trucks. In São Paulo, in addition to unbearable heat, water rationing has been implemented in some regions in the metropolitan area. So far, no news.  But the reflection I make concerns whether we have actually reached a point in which we understand our own vulnerability regarding the environment.

 

Less than a decade ago, we faced a severe blackout, which required society to significantly reduce power consumption and obtained extremely positive results.  It is a fact that these efforts have faded with time, due to lack of guidance by the public power.  

 

We must take advantage of these crises to demand an effective fight against wastefulness.  Efficient equipment and appliances, architecture and engineering that promote water reuse.  We need to create a mentality that reducing our vulnerabilities – which become evident during water and power crises in Brazil – depends on an extreme shift in the way we enjoy our natural resources.

 

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This coming Tuesday, April 29, consultant Fábio Feldmann will take part in Inhotim Escola and talk to the public about more sustainable lifestyles.

Reading time 3 min

Before and after Tunga

Daniela Fagundes

It is impossible not to react to an artwork by Pernambuco-born artist Tunga.  This was my first thought as I entered the gallery named after the artist at Inhotim.  I am not sure if it is because of the smell of iron, which resembles blood, or for the metal that looks like hair or even for the beauty hidden in bones and the weft.  The fact is I can define my relationship with contemporary art in “before Tunga” and “after Tunga”.

 

The truth is it is not easy artwork. But, as for me, nothing that enchants and shocks can be obvious.  And when it comes to Tunga, not even a straw hat is ordinary.  It feels as if the artist constantly invited me to open up my mind, to look beyond what I saw, to be carried away by the dance of the several songs I heard.  For there I was able to see neither the beginning nor the end of the artwork.  What I did see was continuous, such as the cooper strands, the braided chair, the glass on the mirror.  The endless tunnel.

Parte interna da galeria, que leva até a obra "Ão" (1980)
Parte interna da galeria, que leva até a obra “Ão” (1980)

Everything there seemed beautiful to me, even that which disturbed me.  For, at the same time the magnet seemed to repel me, it also attracted me.  A sort of steel lightness. A beauty that included senses other than just vision, which awakened the curiosity to look behind the cloth and which surprised me every time I looked.

 

Because it is impossible not to react to Tunga, I asked some visitors about the feeling the work provoked in them.  Fear, ecstasy, doubt and admiration were the answers I got from perhaps slightly confused observers.  What has this experience awakened in me?  Tunga.

               

Testimony about the first time I entered Galeria Psicoativa Tunga.

 

Tunga was also the theme of Arte Brasileira TV program, aired on the GNT channel.  Watch the video here and find out what the critics, collectors and the artist himself think about his work.

Reading time 3 min

Bringing art closer to life

Equipe de mediadores

During the month of April, the art guided tours at Inhotim addressed still life and its relationship with time and space.  Through this art history genre, it is possible to raise issues related to items in our everyday lives, as well as to how we look at these objects and what transforms them into art.  

 

Como aprender o o que acontece na normalidade das coisas (2002-2005) [How to understand what happens in the natural order of things], by Spanish artist Sara Ramo, is one of the photo series that comprise the Still Life exhibit, at Galeria Fonte in Inhotim. In this work, the artist presents a series of home bathrooms which are sometimes organized, sometimes filled with utensils and personal hygiene items.  By exposing these private environments, she makes them public, surfacing mysterious possibilities about everything that happens in these intimate places.

 

Imagens da série "Como aprender o que acontece na normalidade das coisas", da artista Sara Ramo
Images from the series “Como aprender o que acontece na normalidade das coisas” (2002-2005), by artist Sara Ramo

 

The contrast between photography’s static time and the transformation of the environment on display can be related to the everyday life.  By using the bathroom, we also change it. Would that be an invitation to learn and alter the everyday normality and how we look at our everyday lives? The bathroom composition as well as the choice and position of the items in the artworks allow us to observe the works not as photographs, but as a sort of sculptural moment.  

 

The multiple works by Sara Ramo allow for several interpretations, which grants the artist the status of representative of this contemporary art that transforms the concept given to art since the Enlightenment and brings it closer to life, whether this is done due to the materials used or due to the issues raised by it.

 

How do we deal with our everyday lives?  Are we capable of thinking utilitarian items in a different way, one that goes beyond their primary functionality?

 

 

Written by Daniela de Avelar Vaz Rodrigues, art mediator at Inhotim

 

Reading time 3 min

The Garden of All Senses

Equipe de mediadores

Vision, hearing, taste, touch and smell. These are the five senses we use to relate to and experience the world around us. Inhotim has created the Garden of All Senses as a way to explore these capabilities.  Located in the Educational Plant Nursery, it is a space intended to build knowledge through practice as well as through the exchange of information among visitors and the Institute’s environmental education team.

 

The project includes three mandala-shaped flowerbeds, each one dedicated to aromatic, medicinal and toxic plants.  In this space, visitors are invited to interact with the species and touch them, observing their specificities and even tasting them.  

 

Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana), used to make a natural sweetener, is among the most interesting plants there, together with the white chamomile (Matricaria recutita), with soothing and anesthetic properties.  During the guided tours, we encourage visitors to taste its leaves, which may cause tongue numbness.  

 

Those who visit the garden also find out about the uses of species on display and are able to relate them to practices that have been lost with time, such as the cultivation of medicinal species or the production of vegetable gardens in our own backyards.  It is also an opportunity to show appreciation to things learned from past times and traditions of our grandparents.  

 

Opened in June 2011 during the Environment Week, the space has increasingly become important to bring science closer to the general public. The activities and educational actions carried out in this Garden play a key role in raising environmental awareness as well as in biodiversity preservation.  

 

The Garden of All Senses was accomplished through a partnership between the Environmental Education team, the Friends of Inhotim program and institutions specialized in people with visually impairment. 

 

Written by Diego Pimenta, environmental guide at Inhotim.

Reading time 3 min

2014 Contemporary Music Series

Fernando Rocha

In the 1980s, Belo Horizonte was one of the most important contemporary music hubs in Brazil.  Several events, always very popular with the public, were held by Fundação de Educação Artística at Palácio das Artes This faded as time went by, but I´ve always believed that era could be revived.  

 

In 2009, I started a contemporary music group named Somente 21 in Belo Horizonte. We made several performances in the city and I ended up getting to know Rodrigo Moura, Inhotim’s curator.  From then on, we have developed the Contemporary Music Series, an event aimed at rescuing that movement that happened in the 80s, in complete harmony with the Institute’s proposal.  

 

Contemporary music is closely related to experimentation.  It comes from the tradition of concerts, of the classic, but it is based on the search for new languages.  It is a process whose pure concept involves the investigation of tones and sounds. Everything which produces a sound can be used to make music.  And the possibility to take all this to Inhotim is very interesting, since it is a space for innovation, reflection and transformation.

 

Since the first series in 2012 up to today, there have been eight concerts, which featured the work of composers who are essential to contemporary music.  The Contemporary Music Series has gown this year, with four concerts, several musicians from Minas Gerais and also from other countries and intense interaction to improvise and create new pieces or instruments.  

 

The program starts on Sunday, April 13, with a performance by pianist Xenia Pestova.  Shadow Piano, her first solo album recently launched in Europe, brings pieces played in toy pianos, which create a playful atmosphere rocked by the metallic sound typical of this instrument.  The event takes place at Teatro de Arena at Inhotim, at 1 PM.  

 

The year of 2014 will be filled with experimentation, diverse sounds and great music.