texts

The life and work of Jaider Esbell continue to profoundly mark contemporary Brazilian art with his indigenous “artivist” legacy, even after his untimely death. Together with a note from Denilson Baniwa, this text looks back on the artist’s life and questions the price of visibility in a system that continues to consume Indigenous bodies and epistemes.

Transforming a public staircase into an open-air art museum, MASF is more than just a collection of artifacts. The museum is the realization of a collective dream of fostering important personalities engaged in the local art scene, combining cultural practices with knowledge, poetry and leisure, where resistance leads to urban preservation.

79-year-old Maria Lira Marques – also known as Lira Marques –, has over 40 years of artistic production. The artist and activist hails from the Jequitinhonha Valley, in Minas Gerais and her art, deeply rooted in ancestral knowledge and traditions, critiques societal violence and poverty while preserving the rich cultural heritage of her region. Marques uses art as a vehicle to critique violence and poverty, while also preserving ancestral techniques in her clay sculptures and paintings.