60. Biennale – Padiglione Portogallo

Il progetto Greenhouse rappresenta il Portogallo alla Biennale di Venezia.

Comunicato stampa

MÓNICA DE MIRANDA, SÓNIA VAZ BORGES AND VÂNIA GALA: ‘GREENHOUSE’

PORTUGAL PAVILION

Palazzo Franchetti

San Marco 2847, 30124 Venice (Vaporetto: Accademia)

Press view: Thursday 18 April, 1–3pm (RSVP: [email protected])

‘Greenhouse’, the collective project by artist-curators Mónica de Miranda, Sónia Vaz Borges and Vânia Gala, will represent Portugal at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Using plants native to African countries, the artists will create a ‘Creole garden’ in Palazzo Franchetti, referencing private plots tended by enslaved people as acts of resistance and survival – an antithesis of the monocultural plantation. The project proposes soil as a vector of decolonial and ecological engagement, capable of both sustaining growth and archiving traces of historical violence, connecting past, present and future, the politics of the land, history, body and identity. Created by artists from different backgrounds – visual art, history, and choreography – the project will enact a philosophy of participation, collaboration and interdisciplinary solidarity. The Pavilion unfixes hierarchical conventions, encouraging fluid modes of artistic production grounded in the interconnection of theory and practice, artist and curator. ‘Greenhouse’ also marks two anniversaries: the centenary of Amílcar Cabral (1924–73), a Bissau-Guinean anticolonial leader and agronomist crucial to the country’s independence in 1973, and the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution. The Portugal Pavilion is commissioned by the Directorate-General for the Arts (DGARTES).