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Reading time 2 min

Inhotim + Osklen

Redação Inhotim

Inhotim is an inspiring place. It is a unique destination, where nature, art and architecture coexist in total harmony. Gardens, native forest, galleries and outdoor artworks have the power to make you reflect. The suspicious, seduced, restless look is enchanted – or shocked – by each curve in the path. In fact, strolling around the park is an invitation to perceive the world.

 

This universe of meanings and possibilities enchanted Oskar Metsavaht, creative director for Osklen. In an unprecedented partnership with Inhotim, he and his team spent a week immersed into the Institute, creating and registering the 2015 summer collection of the Rio de Janeiro brand. “Inhotim is a unique experience. A must-see. The desire to express this experience led me to photograph and tape the way I feel and perceive this place”, he reveals.

 

The result of this innovative project goes beyond bringing the beauty of the park to the foreground, and impacts the park’s economic sustainability. This is so because part of the value of Osklen Inhotim products will be allotted to maintain the Institute. The products will be in stores in September and some items will even be sold at Inhotim.

 

Check out Oskar Metsavaht’s testimony in portuguese on this piece of news:

 

 

Reading time 2 min

Realized utopia

Redação Inhotim

Inhotim was created in an intuitive way; it was not the outcome of intentional, systematic planning. With the passage of time, I began to perceive that what we were putting together went beyond the nature of individual ownership. The overall set consisting of the botanical collection coupled with the art collection had a cultural value that should be an asset available to everyone.

 

Inhotim has taken on real outlines of the new model of life, which foreshadows post-contemporary life. The contact with culture, with nature, with artistic manifestations and with beauty arouses people’s curiosity and stimulates them to learn how to become better in the present and future. Inhotim is a paradigm in the world, there is nothing else like it.

 

But if all of this sounds like an utopia, I heard art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist say, when he was at Inhotim: ‘This is a realized utopia’.”

 

Want to know a little more about the philosophy of the founder of Inhotim? So watch the lecture Bernardo Paz made at the Oasis Summit, in Los Angeles/USA.

 

Reading time 4 min

Building spaces: the museum and the sky

Equipe de mediadores

Thinking about the relationship the museum has with the sky is a relatively easy task at Inhotim, famous for displaying part of its collection outdoors.  The way the galleries are arranged throughout the park and the pathways built to get to these galleries encourage new flows and discussions on the encounter between contemporary art and the botanical garden.

 

Building Spaces theme tour:  the museum and the sky propose a discussion about this environment of encounters, offering other ways to look at works on display outdoors.  If the interaction between art and nature creates a new space, new positioning is also created, one which is free of limitations and open to the unknown.

 

Among the countless possibilities at Inhotim, we can find works and artists that question this balance between meanings and experiences.  With his Escultura para todos os materiais não transparentes (1985), Waltércio Caldas forces the look itself to “take another look”.  The apparently incomplete sculpture encourages you to think about empty spaces, silences and rhythm.

 

Waltercio-Caldas
Waltércio Caldas, Escultura para todos os materiais não transparentes, 1985.

 

On the other hand, Vegetation Room Inhotim (2010), by Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias, proposes an optical play with images reflected on a mirror and the place’s landscape.  Conceived specially for a clearing in the woods of Inhotim, the work consists of a mirrored structure immersed in nature, promoting sensorial encounters.  

  

These artists have chosen to incorporate the space in which their work is inserted as an element of their own existence and, thus, they weave relationships with the bodies of those observing these works.  The meaning we give to them happens as a result of this encounter, but the provocations tend to differ in each space, each day, depending on time, mood, how tired the body is, stupor of the mind.

 

I invite all of you to have a new look towards the museum spaces and perceive that which I consider the true role of art:  the creation of movement.

 

Written by Marília Balzani, Art and Education guide at Inhotim

 

 

Feeling like taking part in the Building Spaces: the museum and the sky theme tour? Then, click here to learn about the days and hours the activity takes place. 

 

 

Reading time 3 min

Where does the name Inhotim come from?

Redação Inhotim

No one knows for sure where the name Inhotim comes from, but its origin generates a lot of curiosity among park visitors and employees. One of the best known theories relates the word to an English miner, “Sir Timothy”, who would have lived in the area where the Institute is today. The word “Sir”, translated into Portuguese as “Senhor”, was often pronounced simply as “Nho”. Thus, “Sir Timothy” would have become “Nho Tim”.

 

Another story, evidenced by a notice served on May 26, 1865, registers the existence of a place called “nhotim”, where João Rodrigues Ribeiro, son of Joaquim Rodrigues Ribeiro lived. In one of the receipts attached to the old document, there is a signature in which the location is spelled as “Nhoquim”.

 

The name “Joaquim” also appears in the story told by Dona Elsa, who lives in the Brumadinho region. She offers a variation of the version that involves the English miner, “What I remember people saying is that there was a landowner who was named Joaquim, I think, and his nickname was Tim. So, he was “Senhor Tim”, and became NHÔ TIM. In the old times, we didn’t say “senhor”, we used to say “nhô”. And that’s where the name Inhotim came from”.

 

There is also a story of the journey made by English engineer James Wells throughout Brazil between 1868 and 1886. At some point, he recalls a conversation he had with an African-Brazilian worker on a road near Brumadinho. Local mode of speech indicates that the word Inhotim may be a variation of the expression used by slaves to say yes, sir (in Portuguese: sim, senhor): “N’hor sim”. The existence of six former-slave communities in the municipality of Brumadinho, four of which are acknowledged by the Palmares formation, reinforces this hypothesis.

 

These are some of the possible explanations for the Institute’s name, collected by the Inhotim Center of Memory and Heritage (CIMP) . CIMP was created back in 2008 to rescue the region’s stories and traditions and is one of the projects carried out by the Institute with neighboring communities.

 

Have you ever heard a different story about the origin of the name Inhotim? Share it with us!

Reading time 3 min

Macaúba Palm and its fruit

Redação Inhotim

Inhotim is known for gathering one of the largest palm tree collections in the world, currently with over 700 species from several different places. Among these species is the macaúba palm (Acrocomia aculeata). The species is native to Brazil and its history at the park is quite interesting. In 2012, about 80 specimens were incorporated into the botanical garden by way of a major rescuing action carried out at a mining area near the Institute. Even though the cutting down of these specimens was environmentally authorized, they were saved and incorporated into the Institute’s landscape project.

 

Also known as bocaiúva palm or coyol palm, the macaúba palm is found practically everywhere in Brazil and pretty much everything in the plant can be used. The pulp from its fruit is used to produce flour. Rich in vitamin A and beta-carotene, it can be used in juices, ice-cream, cake, bread and sweets. The leaves can be used to make fishing nets and lines. The wood, on the other hand, is used in houses and other constructions. In addition, soap, margarine and cosmetics are made with the oil extracted from the macaúba seed.

 

A imponente da palmeira macaúba. Foto: Rossana Magri
The imponent Macaúba Palm. Photo: Rossana Magri

 

Brazil currently conducts studies with macaúba focused on the production of biodiesel, a fuel made from vegetable oils. As they realize the potential of this species, scientists have been more and more enthusiastic about the results obtained in these studies. By the end of 2014 Inhotim will begin studies on the spreading of this palm tree, as seed dormancy breaking outside its natural environment is rare and little known.

 

Do you want to learn a bit more about Inhotim Botanical Garden and about the macaúba palm?  Then click here and watch the video.