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Reading time 2 min

A Greener Brumadinho

Redação Inhotim

During the month of June, a group of 15 gardeners from Inhotim worked with a special proposal: to make the city of Brumadinho greener. Through a partnership with the City Administration, the Institute donated to the city a landscape project signed by Pedro Nehring, responsible for the park’s gardens. All the material needed to carry out the project was also donated.

 

That includes over 500 plants, such as palm trees, orchids, salvias and agaves which now embellish flower beds and squares in the city. The species chosen are part of Inhotim’s collection and adapt well to the urban environment, and that is why Nehring has chosen them. “I have been visiting Brumadinho since the early 1980s, when I started building the gardens that are part of Inhotim today. I’m proud to be responsible to take the park’s beauty to the streets of Brumadinho”, says the landscaper.

A palmeira azul foi uma das espécies doadas pelo Inhotim para a cidade. Foto: Rossana Magri
The blue palm is one of the species donated by Inhotim to the city. Photo: Rossana Magri

City residents saw the changes from a close range and approved the new spaces. “I think everything turned up really nice. Brumadinho needed this change and I believe this is the beginning of an even bigger change”, says Lucas Amorim, owner of a small business downtown. The intervention was only one of the phases of the project. Later this year, Inhotim will work on new gardens in the city, continuing the partnership.

Reading time 3 min

Decentralizing Access

Fernando Hermógenes da Silva

Decentralizing Access is an educational project by Instituto Inhotim. The project has been taking place since 2008 and offers broad contact with art to educators in the public school network of Brumadinho and region. During training sessions, visits with students and activities inside and outside Inhotim, educators and students play leading roles in the performance of classroom educational practices.

 

My first contact with the project happened in 2013, at Altidório Amaral Municipal School, in São Joaquim de Bicas, where I still work. From then on, I have witnessed multiple experiences that reach students, their homes, their streets and communities. Decentralizing Access is permeated by the dialog between Inhotim and its surroundings, creating open territories for the exchange of experiences.

 

One of the greatest moments in the program is the visit with students, during which they are accompanied by two mediators and are allowed to experience the Institute’s collection in a unique way.I am surprised every time I take my class to these visits. It is a moment one wishes would last forever.

Crianças com tinta 3
After the visit to Inhotim, students from Altidório Amaral Monicipal School made an activity inspired by the artist Yves Klein, famous for the shade of blue he has created. Photo: Daniela Paoliello

The experiences during the visit and their developments at school can be shared through Rede Educativa [Educational Network], a virtual platform that allows the exchange of experiences related to art-education among project participants.In addition to allowing for a continuous dialog between the Institute and educators, school and the general public, Rede Educativa is a welcoming environment for those working with art at schools and who wish to use it to broaden their horizons.
Decentralizing Access gives the opportunity for each person to discover their personal energy on their own.The space opens up and new possibilities and looks emerge from this new space.Supported by the project team in several different ways, teachers become proponents, their students become collaborators in a type of education made jointly, with endless exchanging. As I see, Decentralizing Access is a platform to interact with art, and through the program, art itself is circulated.

Reading time 4 min

Encouraging transformation

Raquel Novais

Being at Inhotim provokes different experiences, for it is a multiple, transforming, restless place, in addition to being what has become commonplace, an extremely beautiful place.  The gardens and the unique way works of art are displayed at Inhotim are articulated in such a way that each visit is a whole new experience.  

 

Beyond contemplation and the feelings related to such contemplation, Inhotim shows aspects that are often unknown to the hundreds of thousands visitors that go there each year.  One of these aspects regards the impact in the lives of those who live in the city that generously houses Inhotim.  The decision of founder Bernardo Paz to maintain and incorporate the name of the old village, where the gardens sheltered the first works of art, shows the desire of not becoming separated from the history of the place.  The initial awkwardness the name provoked in the general public was quickly overcome and, today, mentioning “Inhotim” does not required so many explanations.

 

Having become the greatest private employer in the city, with 1,300 employees – 80% of which come from Brumadinho and region – and representing the first job of over 400 youngsters in the city bring Inhotim closer to the public and private lives of thousands of Brumadinho-born citizens.  There is also another direct connection between Inhotim and the city, which takes place with the mobilization of the art and botanical collections in social and educational projects.  These projects present children, youngsters and adult with essential issues related to contemporaneity, formulated based on the contact with what is most relevant in the contemporary art scene, as well as on a global agenda related to biodiversity and even to the future of the planet.

 

If these initiatives weren´t enough, as of this month, the Our Inhotim program is granting a 50% discount to all Brumadinho residents who have lived in the municipality for over three years.  This initiative is an additional encouragement for locals to visit and take ownership of this place, which attracts visitors from all over the world.  Having a cultural facility such as Inhotim is an invaluable gain for the city.  Having Brumadinho residents more and more visiting the park and strolling around gardens and galleries is the fulfillment of the Institute’s main objective:  to be a transforming place, which inspires a new way of life.

 

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Our Inhotim Program:

People entitled to the 50% discount: Residents of the municipality of Brumadinho living in the region for over three years;

Registration: On Wednesdays, from 2 pm to 4 pm, at the park reception.  Starts on May 7;

Documents required: ID Card (or the like) and proof of residence;

A card will be issued for those taking part in the program, which must be shown whenever the participant visits Inhotim.

More information: +55 (31) 3571-9700

 

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 4 min

… so far

Everton Silva

When I started my career at Inhotim in 2006, some of my colleagues had already been helping plant the seed of the project we have today. My story at Inhotim is not that long. For instance, some people have been working here for over 20 years, when the region still housed a village called Inhotim, the birthplace of what would become an international institute, a reference in not only Brazil but also worldwide. Anyway, I also consider myself an important part of this beautiful journey.

 

Since my arrival at Inhotim, things have changed in a wonderful way. Eight years ago the park was not like it is today, but it was already beyond anything I had ever seen. I was born in a former-slave community (known as quilombo) and, when I was 12, I moved to Brumadinho with my grandmother, who had to change jobs. At that time, the institute had a different name, less visibility and only received private schools and some special guests. It was very simple, with a few employees in the education area. Unlike today, there wasn’t one single monitor.

 

I arrived at the institution to take care of the waterfowl and soon became known as the duck boy. I was extremely pleased with my job. But one of the most crucial thing in my life happened at this time: I started my undergraduate studies in History. I confess that, at first, it was a bit tricky due to the cultural shock I experienced. I wasn’t very intimate with studying, after all, in my family I had neither encouragement to do such thing, nor the reference of other family members pursuing a college education.

 

I finished college in 2009 and was transferred, closing a fantastic cycle in my life. I then started working at the Environmental Education Department at Inhotim. As a visitation mediator, what I loved the most was working with the students taking part in the Inhotim Escola program. They were mostly very poor kids, and all they needed in order to have a fantastic day was for someone to look at them, and care for them.

 

The year of 2010 brought a lot of changes. I started law school. I was putting another life project into practice. I was once again transferred, this time into the Department of Inclusion and Citizen Empowerment of the institute, where I still work today. The work my colleagues and I do is not simple, but the achievements are rewarding. I have carried out projects with the Association of Recyclable Materials of Brumadinho (Ascavap), former-slave communities (referred to as quilombola) and with the program Inhotim para Todos (Inhotim for All). Each one of these projects has its own specificities, but they are all rewarding because they work directly on the transformation of the individual as a social being.

 

This is my story at Inhotim, so far.