GREENHOUSE, the collective project by Mónica de Miranda, Sónia Vaz Borges, and Vânia Gala, will represent Portugal at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The theme of this edition is “Foreigners Everywhere,” and the exhibition will be open to the public from April 20 to November 24, 2024, at Palazzo Franchetti in Venice.
© GREENHOUSE
Conceived by three artist-curators, Mónica de Miranda (artist, researcher, curator, and artistic director), Sónia Vaz Borges (militant interdisciplinary historian), and Vânia Gala (choreographer and researcher), GREENHOUSE challenges established logics of artistic production and representation, which often reproduce abyssal relationships between curators/artists, creators/critics, art/academia. The project also challenges monolithic notions of identity, culture, nation, and belonging by conceptualizing an alternative identity construction that centers on intersections between ecology, art, and politics, bringing international discussions to a national pavilion.
GREENHOUSE is based on the strategic complementarity between practice, theory, and pedagogy, defining the exhibition space between experimentation and reflection through four actions: Garden (Installation, Space, and Time); Living Archive (Movement, Sound, and Performance); School (Education, History, and Revolution); and Assemblies (Public and Communities). The project aims to create a “Creole garden” inside Palazzo Franchetti, shaped as a sculpture, school, stage, and installation, encompassing discursive and performative actions and serving as a space of resistance and freedom – a transdisciplinary living archive. The curatorial and artistic team proposes a collective action reflecting on the relationships between nature, ecology, and politics, suggesting the emergence of various choreographies through encounters and collaborations between the public, communities, and artists from a range of artistic and scientific expressions, speculative and imaginary, bringing multiple voices of artists and immigrant communities on the theme “we are all foreigners,” directly responding to the call from the Biennale’s general commissioner, Adriano Pedrosa.
The Official Portuguese Representation, curated by the Directorate-General for the Arts, will be exhibited at Palazzo Franchetti, located on the banks of the Grand Canal in Venice, from April 20 to November 24, 2024.
