At the 36th São Paulo Bienal, Nari Ward’s Spring Seed interlaces Jamaica, Brazil, and Japan through coffee’s rich symbolism—an immersive reflection on migration, memory, and global connection. Suzette Bell-Roberts speaks to the artist.
Installation view of Spring Seed by Nari Ward at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
In Spring Seed, Nari Ward transforms the everyday into the extraordinary. Installed in São Paulo’s Liberdade—Japan Town and a site layered with diasporic histories—the work maps an unexpected triangulation between Jamaica, Brazil, and Japan through the humble yet potent seed of coffee. Using bedsprings, cotton cloth, coffee grounds, sound, and video, Ward creates an environment alive with memory and movement. His materials become witnesses to migration, trade, and colonial entanglements, turning Spring Seed into a sensory and spiritual journey that evokes shared histories and the regenerative power of connection.
Suzette Bell-Roberts: Spring Seed brings together Jamaica, Brazil, and Japan through the material and symbolic presence of coffee. How did you arrive at this triangulation of places, and what does coffee reveal about colonial histories and contemporary global flows?
Nari Ward: I was primarily thinking about the place I was experiencing at that moment, São Paulo, specifically the Liberdade neighbourhood, also known as Japan Town. I was reflecting on the Chapel of the Afflicted and how that historic site could be poetically engaged in a contemporary context. This became a personal exploration as I considered my own experience, the triangulation of Japan, Brazil, and Jamaica. I was particularly thinking about Japan’s fascination with Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, which is one of the most expensive coffees in the world. That global exchange inspired me to use coffee as a material and metaphor to bridge these cultures. Brazil entered this dialogue naturally because coffee, which initially came from Ethiopia, became one of Brazil’s most important exports. Today, Brazil remains one of the world’s leading coffee producers. Using coffee allowed me to connect Japan, Brazil, and Jamaica while also acknowledging Africa’s foundational role in this trade history. Liberdade itself, a place that holds both Japanese and African diasporic histories, deepened that complexity. Coffee became the platform and language through which I engaged these intertwined cultural and historical narratives.
Installation view of Spring Seed by Nari Ward at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice © Suzette Bell-Roberts
Bedsprings, cotton covers, coffee grounds, sound, and video all converge in this installation. What drew you to these particular materials, and how do they embody both memory and migration in the work?
I began working with bedsprings early in my practice while exploring the body’s relationship to space. It’s a material we physically interact with often; most mattresses contain springs, even though we rarely see or think about them. I was fascinated by their hidden structure and by the spiral form of the springs, which symbolise life and regeneration. Also, I was drawn to bedsprings as both a poetic and physical material connected to the body. That led me to think about the bed as a whole. For the “SPRING NOTES” gallery exhibition, I went looking for bedsheets in São Paulo. Instead, I came across simple cotton cloths and decided to use those. I later learned that these cloths have deep cultural roots in Brazil, once used for carrying goods like coffee, rice, and cotton before plastic bags became common. Using these everyday materials allowed me to connect with the local community and evoke the memory of place through objects that carry history and familiarity.
The installation requires visitors to enter the enclosed arena of bedsprings. Why was it important for you to make Spring Seed an immersive and bodily experience, rather than something only observed at a distance?
I was very much responding to the space. The curators mentioned they wanted the area to remain open, so I was interested in creating a structure that felt both contained and transparent, allowing you to see through it. That idea of transparency and layering also appears in the “Spring Seed” video, where overlapping images merge from one moment to another. I wanted that same visual experience to exist physically in the space, and the bedsprings allowed for that interplay of openness and enclosed structure.
Installation view of Spring Seed by Nari Ward at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
One of the striking elements of Spring Seed is the incorporation of sound recordings from the Chapel of Our Lady of Souls of the Afflicted, a site with a profound historical significance. How do you see this layering of ancestral memory with contemporary voices and images enriching the narrative of your work?
Yes, the work was about bringing overlooked histories into the centre of a contemporary dialogue on commerce and cultural exchange, particularly through coffee. But I also wanted to acknowledge the lingering histories of colonialism and enslavement without letting them dominate the narrative. The Our Lady of the Afflicted Chapel site was essential to this balance. When I was there, it was being reconstructed, and everything was stripped away except the original adobe walls made from earth. That connection between earth, building, and spirit was powerful. It mirrored the link between the sacred land of the chapel and the fertile land of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. I also recorded the ambient sound of the chapel, incorporating silence or the sense of silence into the soundtrack. I enhanced it using a spring reverb audio program, a technique pioneered in Jamaican sound system culture. This created an echoing, vibrating quality that brought the stillness of the chapel to life, merging sound, space, and history.
Your earlier works often use discarded materials from Harlem as vessels of community histories. How does Spring Seed extend or shift that practice, now working across geographies and particularly within the unique context of the São Paulo Bienal?
My use of found objects has always been about reclaiming discarded things, materials that people overlook or consider irrelevant. These objects, once devalued, become the foundation for new meanings and stories. By using them, I re-centre what has been marginalised, much like how I approached the history of the Chapel in Liberdade. It’s about shifting forgotten or peripheral narratives back into focus and giving them renewed life and significance within the viewer’s experience.
Installation view of Spring Seed by Nari Ward at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
The Bienal frames creativity as a way of practising humanity beyond national or disciplinary borders. How do you, as an audience, see Spring Seed contributing to this idea of art as a practice of listening, connecting, and remembering across distance?
In many ways, that question contains its own answer. My practice, like that of many artists in the Biennial, is about finding open, visual ways to connect people beyond language, nationality, or boundaries. Visual art allows for that openness. Because it doesn’t rely on words, it invites viewers to bring their own memories and expectations. It creates bridges, connections to nature, to others, and to shared stories. The physical experience of seeing the work is also key. The act of viewing, walking through, and being aware of others nearby becomes part of the artwork itself. That sense of community and collective presence is vital. The Oscar Niemeyer building acts as an envelope for these shared experiences. The stories don’t just exist when the artist makes them; they’re produced again when people engage with them. The overwhelming nature of such exhibitions can be generative, opening new ways of feeling and processing. That’s what makes these communal art experiences so powerful.
Nari Ward’s presentation ‘Spring Seed’ is on view at the 36th São Paulo Bienal until 11 January 2026. For more information, visit 36.bienal.org.br.
