Suchitra Mattai
Suchitra Mattai is included in the 36th edition of the São Paulo Biennial. Entitled Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, the edition takes its cue from Afrobrazilian poet Conceição Evaristo’s enigmatic poem Da calma e do silêncio [Of calm and silence].
The central proposal of the Bienal is to rethink humanity as a verb, a living practice, in a world that requires reimagining relationships, asymmetries and listening as the basis for coexistence, based on three curatorial fragments/axes. The metaphor of the estuary – a place where different water currents meet and create a space for coexistence – guides the curatorial project, inspired by Brazilian philosophies, landscapes and mythologies. This concept reflects the multiplicity of encounters that have marked Brazil’s history and proposes that humanity comes together and transforms itself through an attentive ear and negotiation between different beings and worlds.
The curatorial team adopted bird migration patterns as a methodological guide for selecting participants. These patterns include the red-tailed hawk’s journey between the Americas, the ruff’s flight between Central Asia and North Africa, and the Arctic tern’s long polar routes. These birds’ precise cross-continental and cross-climate zone trajectories serve as a metaphor for curatorship itself: like birds, we carry memories, experiences, and languages across borders. We migrate not only out of necessity but also as a form of continuous transformation.
The exhibition will be led by chief curator Prof. Dr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung together with his conceptual team of co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz and Thiago de Paula Souza, as well as co-curator at large Keyna Eleison and strategy and communication advisor Henriette Gallus.