transparências: imagining futures so that there can be a future

Abstract

This report presents the experience transparências, objects conceived from poems by Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade, and their introduction in classes on Modernism. The proposal sought to discuss the movement beyond the reiteration of the critical canon, treating the texts as living matter that still resonates in today’s São Paulo. To this end, hybrid objects were created: glass jars containing water collected from the Tietê River and soil from the Jaraguá Indigenous Reserve, upon which verses by the authors were inscribed. The gesture aimed to satirize the institutional canonization of these names and to reactivate the insurgent force of their works, articulating poetic word, material memory, and urban space. On the pedagogical level, the collection of materials and the presentation of the objects sought to engage students. The questions raised revealed the potential of the practice to open horizons of interdisciplinarity and the imagination of futures. More than preserving modernist memory, the proposal invited students to experience the iconoclastic gesture, desacralizing the canon and reinscribing it in everyday urban life. Thus, transparências seeks to combine cultural critique, artistic intervention, and teaching practice, reaffirming Modernism’s capacity to instigate reflection and invention concerning city, nature, and culture.