Transiting Time Exhibition

Instituto Cultural Vale

There is something in transit in contemporary art in Espírito Santo. In response to the dynamic movement of time, the multiple artistic languages, sensitivities and ways of making serve as a reminder that history is not a fixed territory, but rather a field open to questioning and the creation of new perspectives and new ways of gazing, a mirror of the complexity of time and art, in constant reinvention.

Curated by Nicolas Soares and Clara Pignaton, the exhibition Transitar o Tempo (Transiting Time), organised by Vale Museum in its extramural moment, brings together 30 artists from Espírito Santo and continues as a journey between generations of creators who carry with them not only their own experiences, but also the social, political and cultural contexts that shape them. Occupying Casa Porto das Artes Plásticas, in Espírito Santo, in partnership with the City of Vitória, through the Secretariat of Culture, the exhibition is an invitation to the meeting of eras and celebrate the production from Espírito Santo. 

Transiting Time reflects Vale Museum’s commitment to expanding its activities outside its walls, promoting access to art, culture and education, broadening its reach by travelling to new spaces and highlighting the importance of preserving Espírito Santo’s cultural memory. 

The Museum’s actions are linked to the work carried out by Vale Cultural Institute, which, since 2020, has organised or sponsored more than 800 cultural initiatives in Brazil. These are plural initiatives with a singular purpose: to create opportunities to transform life through culture. Therefore, we hope that by experiencing the exhibition, which is open to visitors from December 2024 to March 2025, each visitor will be able to walk through a journey that pulses with art and brings us closer to the encounter between past, present and future.

Instituto Cultural Vale

City Hall of Vitória

Time, ‘the composer of destinies’, which has already been measured by the sun, the phases of the moon, the hourglass, clocks and other instruments, ultimately makes its home in people’s hearts. They are the historical protagonists who participate in social poetics and contribute to its construction.

This poetics, fluid and alive, which reveres what has been and looks to what could be; which cultivates tradition and bets on creative and inventive transgression, is what interests the Transiting Time exhibition. A shift between the said and the done, a movement that brings together 30 artists from Espírito Santo and their aesthetic perceptions of the theme.

It is with immense pride that this House, which is the Harbour of Fine Arts, opens to ‘dock’ and, more than that, to house the history and cultural memory of Espírito Santo translated into this contemporary group show. Vitória City Hall, through the Culture Department, celebrates its partnership with the Vale Museum and reaffirms its commitment to keeping its doors open to the arts. Welcome to our house!

Edu Henning
Culture Secretary for Vitória

Curatorial

At the crossroads of contemporaneity, a stone was thrown today and its resonance expands: yesterday a sound echoed in the future. Among the countless images of time that humankind has created to orientate itself, we are commonly faced with those that see the past as immutable and cohesive in order to offer notions of stability in the face of uncertain futures. However, the relationship between time, space and causation is not necessarily a linear and successive movement through time, but rather an exercise in weaving together discourses, practices and ways of doing things from the past into a time-now.

The verb transit does not indicate its beginning, middle or end, nor even the purpose and intentionality of a specific action. To have existed before, in the role of culture and the organisation of its achievements, even in the past, can be to speculate on the unborn future; reflecting what has gone before, but also prospecting for possible ruptures. When we turn our attention to the artistic production of the past, we are devoid of the eyes of the past. Considering that we are part of historical processes allows us to be present and reorganise an old image of the socio-political and cultural contexts in which we live.

Transiting Time rehearses generational approaches and contrasts between artists so as to provoke tension in the idea of a unified geographical section. Based on these encounters and intertwining, we pay attention to the intermediate space between the works, in other words, what connects them and the movement from one to the other, not to synthesise or draw a line of continuity, but to expose the conflicts of a shared culture and make room for other connections. Although the works come from different places of imagination, what they have in common is that they affirm critical dynamics towards modernisation projects and their violence.

From the moment of meeting the demands of the present, history is made. In this way, before and after are turned round, there is no caesura between the past and the future through the present since both inhabit it. The image of the past takes on a new perspective by becoming a unique experience in the present, and even though it lives in the recondite place of its own history, it communicates new interpretations to the present. This historical material survives and reappears in gestures and corporeality, in know-how, as creation.

Languages, techniques and poetics elaborated in the art of the now claim existence and the ever-changing movement of establishing oneself. We realign the past the more we move into the future; it is in the movement itself that the shelter of time seems to lie.

Nicolas Soares and Clara Pignaton

Shell-city
Gabriela Leandro Pereira

A shell is a fossil. That shell you find on the beach, which has two parts, is the fossil of a mollusc called a bivalve. The bivalve has a fragile, marine body that sucks in nutrients from the sea, building from them its home, its shell, its hard shell that will protect it throughout its life. When the bivalve dies, the shell remains in the sea and lives its fossilised life for many years. In 2018, I discovered that my grandfather, João Carlos Pereira, had built a shell. An unusual, curious discovery, with no precise location and at the same time gigantic. A concrete shell, built in 1952 in Moscoso Park. Clad in ceramic tiles and finished in granite, the shell is an open-air amphitheatre. My grandfather proudly and amusingly told me the story of how he fixed and laid the granite pieces in the modernist equipment. He also told me about the hardness of the stone, about the marble quarries in Rio de Janeiro, about the trucks that took the slabs to Vitória, about the quarries in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, about the cuts, moulds and drawings he created and executed. All of this is inscribed in the island city that my marble-working grandfather built and in the island city built with shell lime by the colonial company.

Cities that mix but don’t blend, in which geological lessons inform us about the cooling of volcanic lava and the crystallisation of minerals, about the migrant lives that inhabited ponds and swamps even before the massacre of the Goytacaz native people, about the declaration of ‘Vitória’ (Vitória) that forged a name for the city with the indigenous blood poured into the waters of the bay. Human blood, which contains sodium, has a residence time – the name given to how long a substance lasts in the ocean – of 260 million years. Time and blood are contained in the fossil shell of the bivalve, in the shell used in colonial architecture and in the shell of modernist architecture, erected by the black hands of my marble-working grandfather in this island city.

Vision to the invisible
Marcus Vinícius Sant’ana

As I travel back in time and dive into the sea of history in search of art, I confess that many manifestations come to mind.

With the territories of Espírito Santo as a geographical reference, I imagine, for example, Otto Braga, ‘the poet of the streets’, as he became known, reciting his poetic verses on pavements and alleys, woven by the spontaneity of improvisation and entangled by sudden loves and the offal of everyday life in the capital.

The reverie of the imagination also takes me to the batucada rhymes of Beatinho, a black man who lived in São Mateus in the days of slavery and who, born free, used to wander the corners of Sapê do Norte making verses sung and rhythmised by a drum he made himself. Through music, he brought encouragement to his brothers and sisters of colour who, deprived of the gift of freedom, bled and died for the sake of progress that did not benefit them.

Ignoring my imagination and resorting to my memory, I recall the prayers and gingas of Maria Laurinda, grand master of Caxambu and griô guardian of the quilombo of Monte Alegre, Cachoeiro.

I could also talk about the magical hands of Dona Domingas de Goiabeiras, who, with the same dexterity that she was blessed with, also modelled clay pots; Dona Astrogilda’s standard-bearing; Aílton Canário’s gift for composing beautiful sambas… There are so many!

The current that rips through time and unites all these artistic gifts in similarity has colour, popular origins and the genius of making art.

But it is also accompanied by a dense penumbra. That of denial!

‘Picturesque’, “sub-art”, “not art”!  There have been many labels that have imposed a constant reduction on the knowledge and endeavours of those who have made art an act of social belonging.

As we continue to move through time and return to contemporary times, we see a scenario that, unfortunately, is still not completely free of the aforementioned penumbra; but which, fortunately, now has a chain with links that are increasingly strengthened by self-recognition.

Transiting Time – and any manifestation that displays the art of those who were once or still are silenced – is to transform verses, movements, drumbeats, sculptures, performances [in short, art] into the most powerful act of anchoring in the world!

I see no point in disrespecting time
Tatiana rosa

‘Time doesn’t like anything done without it,’ I learnt. I can’t conceive of existence without this teaching. Thinking and reacting to the adversities of our existence, with the legacy of aesthetic, political and poetic creations in confluence, inseparably from the translations of our current situation, sets us in motion. Ancestry and conspiracies for the future localise the spiral of temporality in which we find ourselves. In this interdependent way, what made sense before now supports us in understanding and reworking our existence today. Always ‘from’. Transiting this temporality is therefore fundamental. Especially because of what is made to dialogue as put forward in the purpose of this exhibition’s, that is, the legacy of artists who came before together with current artists, many of whom are ignored by institutions. This is when the questions that have been silenced for centuries are asked: after all, ‘who were they, where were they and what was produced as art at the time of our grandmothers?’. I’m sharing the issues raised by Walker (2021) about artistic production and conspiracies for the future. In order to stand firm, we need to return to these perspectives forgotten by history for the confabulation of futurity and ancestry. Beginning, middle and beginning (Santos, 2023), the interrelation of counter-hegemonic and counter-colonial epistemologies articulated with knowledge presented from corporeality, memory, community, orality, musicality, territoriality, among others that determine dynamic and mutual ways of seeing-being and thinking about the world. The dialogue between generations from the perspective of time is a way to review discourses, images and repertoires, to place ourselves in a community for the sake of collectivity. Are we comfortable reviewing things in the world and democratising our thoughts? 

References
SANTOS, A. A terra dá, a terra quer. São Paulo: Ubu Editora, 2023.
WALKER, Alice. In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens. Rio de Janeiro: Bazar do tempo, 2021.

Credits

VALE

President

Gustavo Pimenta

Executive VP of Sustainability 

Malu Paiva

Executive VP of Corporate and Institutional Matters

Alexandre D’Ambrosio

Executive VP of Finances and Investor Relations

Marcelo Bacci

VP Operations Executive 

Carlos Medeiros

VP Personnnel Executive 

Catia Porto

VP Projects Executive

Alexandre Pereira

VP Executive Iron Ore Solutions Interim

Rogério Nogueira

VP Executive Technical

Rafael Bittar

INSTITUTO CULTURAL VALE

STRATEGIES COUNCIL

President 

Malu Paiva

Vice-president

Flávia Constant
Hugo Barreto
Octavio Bulcão

BOARD OF EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS

Director President 

Hugo Barreto
Luciana Gondim
Gisela Rosa

PROJECTS AND SPONSORSHIP

Marize Mattos

Staff

Ana Beatriz Abreu
Bárbara Alves
Elizabete Moreira
Eunice Silva
Fabianne Herrera
Flávia Dratovsky
Jéssica Morais
Joana Martins
Luciana Vieira
Maristella Medeiros
Michelle Amorim
Neila Souza
Nihara Pereira

MUSEU VALE

Director

Claudia Afonso

Head of Finance and Management 

Noyla Nakibar

Assistant of Finance and Management 

Bruno Mota
Fagner Chaves

Communication

Tereza Dantas

Production 

Diester Fernandes
Karoline Leite

Production assistant

André Leão

Head of education outreach 

Hellen Lugon

Training staff

Ana Luiza Pio
Carla Santos
Gleicimar Marques
Jonathan Schmidel
Rafaela Ribeiro

VALE – ES

Director of Peletting

Rodrigo Ruggiero

Institutional and Governmental Relations Management

Helga Franco
Vanessa Tavares

Legal 

Renata Padilha

Press 

Carla Nascimento

Operational services

Elida Rafachine
Domingos Rocha

Real estate 

Stenio Lacerda
Heloisa Santos
Renata Ersinzon

PREFEITURA DE VITÓRIA

Mayor

Lorenzo Pazolini

Vice-Mayor

Estéfane da Silva Franca Ferreira

Culture secretary

Eduardo Henning Louzada

Culture sub-secretary

Alison Costa Joaquim

CASA PORTO DAS ARTES PLÁSTICAS

Head

Roberto Trabach Junior

Press

Pedro Vargas

Cultural mediators

Alice Beraldi de Abreu
Amanda de Matos Carvalho

Cultural analyst

Sebastião Ribeiro Silva

Management staff

Ana Cristina Boldi Veiga dos Santos

Municipal Cultural Fund

Camilla Tallon

Cultural accessibility

Lilian Menegucci

Security crew

Felipe da Silva Souza
Silas Costa da Silva
Welington Rodrigues da Silva
Fabiano Nascimento da Ressurreição

General services

Jandiara dos Santos Barbosa

EXHIBITION

Transiting Time

General coordinator

Claudia Afonso

Curators

Nicolas Soares
Clara Pignaton

Exhibition design

Monomotor
Felipe Gomes
Mirella Schena

Exhibition design assistant

Raquel Andrade de Assis

Production

Automatica
Diogo Fernandes
Luiza Mello
Mariana Schincariol de Mello
Marisa S. Mello

Local production

Lorena Simões

Educational outreach

Tatiana Rosa

Reseachers

Gabriela Leandro Pereira
Marcus Vinicius Sant’Ana
Tatiana Rosa

Visual identity and graphic design

Monomotor

Graphic design assistant

Júlia Brito

Lighting

Vitor Lorenção

Photographic recording

Claraboia

Video recording

Molaa

Text proofing

Patricia Galleto

Translation

Lobo Pasolini

Press

Agência Guanabara
LR Comunicação

Accessibility 

Museus Acessíveis

Printing

GSA

Set up 

Danilo Montagens
Victor Malta
Tuca Sarmento
Mario Eugênio

3D Images

Matheus Borges

Set design

AG cenografia
André Luiz
Gustavo de Oliveira

Graphic design

Fábio Souto

Transport

FINK

PROGRAMA APRENDIZ MUSEU VALE

Teachers

Clara Pignaton
Elaine Pinheiro
Elsimar Rosindo Torres (SENAC)
Luciano Feijão
Marcus Vinicius Sant’Ana

Student interns

Ana Flávia de Souza Felício
Daniel Soares Araújo
Dayene Barcelos da Silva
Davi Ribeiro Babilon
Ester Vitória Santana da Silva
Gabriel Santana Mancini Capichi
Igor Goulart de Oliveira
Keyvyson de Avelar Gomes
Lara da Silva Bispo
Lavínia Barcellos Cremasco
Lhorrany Karoline Oliveira Silva
Maria Isabel Siller Rodrigues
Yasmin Nascimento Santana
Thalyta Christina Vieira Freitas

Production

Frida Projetos Culturais, Sociais e Educacionais

Thanks

Acervo de Artes Visuais da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo
Galeria Homero Massena
Instituto Paz

ARTISTS

Antonio Rosa
Barbara Carnielli
Bruno Cabús
Bruno Zorzal
Charlene Bicalho
Dilma Góes
Dona Antônia
Euzira Neves
Fredone Fone
Geovanni Lima
Gessé Paixão
Grupo Barra de Renda
Kika Carvalho
Liliana Sanches
Luciano Feijão
Marcos Martins
Marcus Vinicius
Matheusa Moreira
Meuri Ribeiro
Natan Dias
Natanael Souza
Paulo Fernandes
Renato Ren
Reuto Fernandes
Ronaldo Mateus Lima
Rosana Paste
Rubiane Maia
Yuriê Perazzini
Yurie Yaginuma & Jéssica Sampaio