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Reading time 4 min

Inhotim Lab travels to New York

Redação Inhotim

The Institute’s oldest educational project, Inhotim Lab, is packed and ready to visit one of the most vibrant cities in the world. As part of the activities in the program, nine students will be travelling to New York this coming Thursday, July 17, to take part in an observation and learning experience which includes visits to museums, cultural spaces, event venues and artist studios. “Inhotim is a space that proposes international dialogs through its collections. We have works of art and botanical species from several parts of the world. At Inhotim Lab, we also seek this kind of exchange. Visiting new places and getting to know new people broaden horizons and help us understand our own place in the world, leading to empowerment”, says Maria Eugênia Salcedo, transversal education manager for Inhotim.

 

One of the high points of the group’s agenda is a street party organized by the New Museum, exclusively dedicated to contemporary art. The program for the event, entitled New Museum Block Party, includes free performances and workshops intended for children and adults and inspired by the exhibits on display at the institution. Youngsters taking part in the museum’s educational projects are in charge of part of the program for the Block Party. The idea is that this experience allows Inhotim Lab participants to lead the organization of a festival in Brumadinho in November, proposing a new relationship with the spaces in the city.

 

Fourteen-year-old Millene Raissa Paraguai is a student at the Maria Solano Menezes Diniz Municipal School, in the district of Tejuco. She is looking forward to boarding on a plane for the first time. “This is an experience I will remember forever. I am very happy to take part in Inhotim Lab. When I visit the park now, I have a different look towards art and also towards life itself”, reveals the teenager. With regard to the party, she says she wants to pay attention to every little detail and see what ideas can be used in their event in November. “Each place has its own reality, whatever works there might not work here”, she says.

 

Inhotim Lab is an art-oriented educational program aimed at 12 to 16-year-old students in the public school network in Brumadinho. By conducting research and experimentations, participants develop a critical and reflexive eye not only towards the art world, but also in relation to the context in which they live, becoming active agents in their communities. About 200 youngsters have taken part in Inhotim Lab since the program started back in 2007. Besides New York, the project has taken the students to London and Buenos Aires.

 

Are you curious to learn more about this journey? During the trip, Inhotim’s Blog will post testimonials and reports of participants and educators who are going to New York. Make sure you check it out!

 

If you wish to help the Institute carry out projects such as this one, click here and become a Friend of Inhotim.

Reading time 3 min

Award-winning architecture

Redação Inhotim

In addition to works of art and gardens that draw attention worldwide, Inhotim has also been consolidating itself as a showcase of Brazilian contemporary architecture. Proof of this is that the Burle Marx Educational and Cultural Center, where the work Narcissus Garden Inhotim (2009) by artist Yayoi Kusama is installed, was nominated for the 1st Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize, granted by the Illinois Institute of Technology, in the United States. Among the 225 projects chosen, 36 stood out in the “exceptional” category, including the Institute’s building, which was joined by important names in architecture in the Americas, such as Herzog & Meuron, Gehry Partners and Steven Holl Architects.

 

This is not the first time the building is nominated for an award. Created to Inhotim by the Minas Gerais-based office Arquitetos Associados and inaugurated in 2009, the Burle Marx Educational and Cultural Center won in the “Institutional Buildings” category of the 3rd Best of Architecture, granted by the Arquitetura & Construção magazine (Editora Abril), nominated for the 9th Young Architects 2009, granted by IAB SP; nominated for the 12th IAB MG Architecture Award in 2010, among others.

 

Essentially a space for work and knowledge, the Burle Marx Educational and Cultural Center houses the Institute’s educational programs, oriented towards Art and Education and Environmental Education. With 1,704 m2, the building houses a library and studios where workshops take place, in addition to Inhotim Theater, with 214 seats, and Café do Teatro, a great place to have a espresso and try a great pão de queijo (cheese puff).

 

On top of the building lies a version of one of the most emblematic works by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.Originally shown in the 33rd Venice Biennial, in an off-record participation of the artist in the event, Narcissus Garden Inhotim gathers 500 stainless iron spheres that float on a water mirror on the roof. Wind and other external factors create new forms in the installation, which reflects visitors, the sky, the water and the surrounding vegetation, creating, in the words of Kusama, “a kinetic carpet”.

 

What about you? Have you already been to the building and seen this work?Tell us about your experience and comment below.

Reading time 4 min

Innovative business models

Luiz Othero

During the 10th Inhotim Environment Week, we had a workshop that gave us the opportunity to venture into the Business Model Generation, based on the Institute’s botanical and art collections. The Business Model Generation is a book that works as a practical and efficient manual on how to understand, design, test and implement business models.

 

Written in collaboration between 470 professionals in 45 different countries, the book resulted in a simple and assertive methodology that allows for creative and intuitive potential to emerge based on a visual language. Meawhile, it ensures a logical and rational structure, transforming the way business models are created, represented and communicated. The workshop was inspired by the publication mentioned and participants presented and tested the methods proposed by it.

 

In an ever changing world, we need tools that can keep up with the speed of the changes we experience. The Business Model Generation features a chart, referred to as Canvas, in which the nine elements that make up a business model are projected. As time goes by, the relationships that influence your business change, the scenario becomes favorable or unfavorable and, since nowadays this all happens at an amazing speed, and the Canvas allows for a prompt reconfiguration of your business model.

 

The following video briefly explains the Business Model Canvas:

 

We were privileged with the reflections we were able to absorb from the collections, as we worked the theme within Inhotim. The work True Rouge was chosen to be observed in the beginning of our workshop and, thus, it was the work that contributed the most with our inspiration process. Participants visited the gallery where the True Rouge is installed, expanding the boundaries of their creative potential to delve into an intuitive, collaborative and multidisciplinary process to generate business models. In several moments during the workshop, the reflections generated by the observation of the work would help learn new tools to generate business models, as well as expand participants’ reflection capacity and creativity.

Results were amazing. The atmosphere of trust was quickly established after reflections on the work were observed and shared, and creativity and collaboration appeared naturally throughout the course of the workshop. Participants were able to quickly absorb the content and start practicing right away.While the Canvas was being filled out, the doubts that came up were solved within the group, and the facilitator’s intervention was hardly needed. The Business Model Generation powered by Inhotim was tested and validated!

 

Learn more about this method on the Business Model Generation official website. There you can download the template of the chart used for the Canvas.

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

10th Environment Week

Redação Inhotim

Have you heard of ecological footprint? Carbon credit? Environmental innovation? These and other expressions have often come up when it comes to preserving the planet. Researchers all over the world are joining forces to think about ways to reduce man’s impact on the Earth and how to make such practices common to any citizen. Next week, this discussion will take place at Inhotim, with the 10th Environment Week, whose theme this year is People for Climate.

 

From June 1 to 8 Inhotim will host an intense program with innovation workshops, seminars with special guest speakers, environmental education workshops, guided theme visits, games and a botanical exhibit. The activities propose a reflection on environmental preservation and present initiatives related to sustainability.

 

Inhotim’s Blog talked to Joaquim de Araújo Silva, Environment and Botanical Garden Director at the Institute. Check it out!

Inhotim’s Blog – This is the 10th edition of the Environment Week and the 8th to take place at Inhotim. How do you analyze this trajectory?

Joaquim de Araújo – The Environment Week is intended to synchronize global, national and regional themes at Inhotim, and then establish attitudes based on these discussions. Throughout the years, we have found important solution for environmental issues and have reaffirmed the value of Inhotim Botanical Garden in preserving biodiversity. The Environment Week has become a forum to discuss the environmental theme at a real high level.

 

IB – People for Climate is this year’s theme. In which kind of initiative do you believe people can get engaged in order to try to slow down climate changes?

JA – We intend to bring this topic to people’s everyday lives, so that they can reflect on their way of life. Climate change and global warming are closely related to how member of contemporary society live their lives on a daily basis. We want to draw the attention of individuals, and not only of companies, about their consumption patterns and habits. The conscious use of natural resources is essential for us to reverse this scenario. We don’t have a recipe for success, but we must perceive that consuming with common sense is related to the well-being of society as a whole.

 

IB – What has Inhotim been doing to reduce its impact on the environment?

JA – First of all, we know we are responsible for flora and biodiversity conservation and we have increasingly positioned ourselves effectively when it comes to this theme. As a botanical garden, we work with several goals, including research, committing ourselves to the Brazilian reality. Now, when it comes to managing the park itself, we have established the Environmental Management System, whose purpose is to map out and create a more efficient way to operate. The actions include control and monitoring of solid waste produced at Inhotim, reduction of expenses with electric power, improve drinking water use and handling, among others. These are practical ways to ensure the Institute’s excellence in its relationship with its surrounding environment.