ARA Journal is dedicated to reflecting on Museums and Heritage, based on a discussion about current times, in compliance with the meaning of the word that names the magazine. Thus, past time, the present and what is expected of the future constitute privileged focuses. With each issue, the Museum/Heritage Group (GMP) suggests themes to the Editorial Board (EC), made up of national and international experts, who select them. It is also up to the latter to read the Submissions and endorse referees to analyze the material sent, in compliance with the Regulations. It is divided into two parts: one dedicated to the different ongoing GMP research, called Dossier; the other focuses on the Submissions, both examined by at least two experts, in order to ensure the intended merit.
Universidade de São Paulo. Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo e de Design
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With an eye on the past, perspectives for the future emerge
Cultural Heritage: transversalities and the Continuous Task of Memory
The editorial celebrates the 10th anniversary of Revista ARA and provides a brief retrospective of the themes covered throughout the 19 editions, with special emphasis on its editorials. Finally, it presents the articles in the GMP Dossier and the 12 submitted articles, a collection that approaches cultural heritage as a field of integrated knowledge. This unfinished construction requires critical mediation and the recognition of diverse groups and identities, finding value in its capacity to persist in the present as a device of resistance.
This article proposes to analyze house-museums as active devices for the production of meaning, overcoming the preservationist view of heritage. Based on the notion of digital domesticity, it discusses how technologies and algorithmic mediations reconfigure the experience of dwelling and its historicization. In dialogue with Byung-Chul Han, it problematizes the dematerialization of life and the commodification of community; with Emanuele Coccia, it highlights the house as a space of coexistence and care; and with Paul B. Preciado, it emphasizes the political and performative dimension of domesticity. In this context, the house-museum is understood as a field of symbolic dispute that articulates memory, territory, and different temporalities, capable of both resisting commodification and reinforcing processes of aestheticization of experience. The concept of transculturation, by Fernando Ortiz, allows it to be interpreted as a space of cultural fusion and reinvention. Finally, the article situates these institutions in the face of contemporary ecological transformations, proposing them as cultural infrastructures capable of mediating relationships between memory, community, and possible futures.
This article aims to address the appropriation of the concept of heritage from the perspective of experience, established through interaction with contemporary art, and the implications deduced from analyses that contribute to this discussion. It considers aspects related to works characterized by demanding bodily experiences, deriving bodily narratives, and assuming the peculiar exclusivity of the phenomena with which one has singular contact. Attentive to the exclusive nature of these experiences—which trigger senses, meanings, and sensitive memories resulting from the interaction and their permeability to the sensations of those who experience them, we dare to confer upon them the status of cultural heritage.
Bernardo Mascarenhas Cultural Center: Artistic manifestations of memory in the textile heritage of Juiz de Fora – MG
This article explores the intersections between artistic representations and memory within the context of industrial heritage preservation, using the Bernardo Mascarenhas Cultural Center in Juiz de Fora (MG) as a case study. It examines the relationship between the industrial building, community belonging, and artistic practices, questioning the extent to which art museums and cultural centers can activate the historical contradictions and representational multiplicities inherent in such heritage sites. In this context, the exhibitions Memória Mascarenhas (2020) and Mulheres de Fibra (2020)—organized by the center—serve as instruments for mobilizing collective memory, highlighting the role of artistic practices as potential mechanisms for preserving industrial legacy. The article argues for making such exhibitions permanent, thereby consolidating these cultural spaces as agents for activating memory and fostering critical reflection on industrial heritage.
From floor to step: materiality and cultural practices at Flor de Maio, São Carlos-SP
The article analyzes the Grêmio Recreativo e Familiar Flor de Maio, in São Carlos-SP, as cultural heritage. Based on oral and documentary sources, it examines how the physical building (“floor”) and cultural practices (“step”) constitute a space of resistance, sociability, and identity affirmation since the post-abolition period. It demonstrates that the value of the building lies in its political and affective use by the community, which acts as the legitimate interpreter of its memory. The notion of “from floor to step” synthesizes this relationship, in which building and practices mutually sustain each other as an expression of an urban quilombo.
Preservation, Housing, and Resistance: The Aquarius Republic and the narratives of the construction of living heritage in Ouro Preto/MG
This article analyzes the triad of housing, heritage, and territory through the lens of student residences in Ouro Preto/MG, focusing on the Aquarius Residence. It investigates how student self-management and the daily use of old houses constitute "living heritage" and a social technology of preservation. Through document analysis and interviews, the study presents university dwelling as a practice of resistance and re-signification of space. It concludes that the vitality of the historical center depends on this occupation, which integrates material preservation with collective social dynamics.
Living the city and the São João del-Rei regional museum: the triad of memory, space and culture
This study aims to critically analyze the relationship between museums and cities based on the exhibition “Preservar pra quê?” (2017), held at the Regional Museum of São João del-Rei. The dialogue between architecture and museology is presented through the triad of memory-space-culture, aiming to reflect questions about the museum’s formation, exhibition design, narrative disputes surrounding the Casarão do Comendador, and the role of IPHAN.
The Image of Many Images: An Analysis of Graphic Resources in the Meta-Acervos and Vikus Digital Museum Collection Visualization Platforms
The article proposes a study of the visual resources used in digital museum collection platforms, understanding them as cultural artifacts in themselves rather than repositories of cultural heritage. Through the analysis of two cases, Meta-Acervos (FAPESP/FAU USP) and Vikus (FH Potsdam), it aims to discuss how design contributes to the creation of generous interfaces, with multiple perspectives, connections, and possibilities for dialogue between artworks.
acervo museológico. plataformas digitais. design de interface. visualização de dados. humanidades digitais.
The leaning landscape: verticalization and the cultural construction of the urban landscape in Santos
This article uses the phenomenon of leaning buildings on the Santos waterfront as a starting point to problematize the notion of "cultural landscape" in the field of heritage. By taking the skyscraper as a privileged object, it discusses how technique, labor, and memory intertwine in the production of the urban landscape. It proposes the notion of "cultural urban landscape" as a conceptual operator capable of making intelligible, without resolving, the tension between technique and culture in the contemporary urban environment.
Atmosphere as a Key to Reading Heritage: Application to the Kamukuwaká Cave in the Upper Xingu
The article proposes heritage atmosphere as an analytical key to overcome the centrality of the object in the heritage field. It focuses on the Kamukuwaká Cave, in the Upper Xingu, whose rock art panel was vandalized and digitally reconstructed. This reconstruction acts as a mediation of memory and as a symbolic reactivation of the cultural asset. It concludes that preservation must sustain the relations that keep the asset culturally alive, without losing sight of the integrity of its supporting media.
Heritage in the Feminine: Women’s House Museums in Brazil
This article focuses on house museums dedicated to women in Brazil, examining cultural heritage and its relationship to gender discourse, based on an understanding of gender as a category of analysis (Scott, 1988). Drawing on literature reviews, field visits, and documentary research, we have compiled an unprecedented survey of house museums in the country named after women. We discuss the meanings of the female presence in relation to musealization and preservation. Understanding heritage as a field of contention, we reflect on how female roles are made visible or rendered invisible in these houses and how they contribute to the transformation of the heritage field.
patrimônio cultural; casas-mueseus; gênero; mulheres; patrimonialização
Between documentary gaps and present-day mediations: heritage in the making at Espaço Cultural Elza Soares
This article examines how the former warehouse on Alameda Eduardo Prado, now Espaço Cultural Elza Soares, comes to be read as heritage in the making. Based on historical documentation, material analysis and the restoration project, it investigates the constitution of its value through documentary gaps, successive uses, heritage protection, urban conflict and design mediations.
The Trace of the Gesture: The Curucucu Costume in the Cavalhadas of Pirenópolis
Taking Souza’s formulation (1987) as our starting point, we understand dress as an art brought to life by gesture and completed in space, and extend this idea to the world of popular festive attire. Through the Curucucu costume from the Cavalhadas of Pirenópolis, we examine how, in that context, costume and mask temporarily suspend social roles and give shape to the festive space.
Adaptive reuse in industrial heritage zones: perspectives and intersections
This study aims to discuss the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage through art and culture. The topic is addressed through a comparative analysis of two Brazilian case studies: SESC Pompéia, in São Paulo, from an institutional perspective, and the Galpão da Lua Cultural Collective, in Presidente Prudente, which operates within a non-institutional context. This comparison contributes to a broader understanding of the intersections and transversalities related to the subject.
Heritage invisibility and socio-spatial inequality in suburban rio de janeiro: the inventory as an instrument of recognition in Méier
This paper examines the invisibility of cultural heritage in suburban Rio de Janeiro, focusing on the neighborhood of Méier, and highlights socio-spatial inequality in the distribution of protected assets. Based on an inventory that identified more than one thousand buildings with historical characteristics, the study discusses institutional selectivity, its valuation criteria, the impacts of urban transformations on the landscape, and the need for more inclusive and democratic heritage policies.
Patrimônio cultural. Subúrbio carioca. Invisibilização patrimonial. Desigualdade socioespacial. Inventário cultural
Contested Heritage and Neglected Memory: Historic Mansions and the Limits of Public Policy in Paraibuna, São Paulo
The study analyzes the condition of the historic mansions in downtown Paraibuna as elements of cultural heritage and local memory. Despite protective legislation, many buildings have been altered, abandoned, or demolished. The research identifies weaknesses in preservation policies and points to the gradual loss of the architectural ensemble, highlighting the need for effective actions by public authorities and society.
Look Up: A Visual Essay on the Vertical Landscape of Ponta Grossa
The visual essay Look Up! investigates the verticalization of Ponta Grossa (1930-1990). Through inventory and mapping, the essay challenges the hegemonic notion of heritage, limited to eclectic architecture. Photography, combined with the flâneur practice, reveals the vertical landscape as an aesthetic-political device that tensions forgotten memories and new ways of inhabiting the city, composing an urban palimpsest.
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Extraordinary Museums: alike in transgression
Este número da Revista ARA, conforme enunciado no editorial da edição anterior, agrupa artigos que ampliam a discussão MUSEUS_ABERTURAS_TROCAS, inicialmente proposta para a ARA 18, em direção a contornos que envolvem o território e a sociedade. Mais do que isso, observadas com minúcia, e à distância incomum do leitor que afere motivações, entranhas, desdobramentos e implicações, as reflexões reunidas nesta edição tratam de museus constituídos fora dos padrões, distintos dos exemplos conhecidos, frequentemente compreendidos como parte de um conjunto de instituições culturais que abrigam e colecionam, conservam e estudam, exibem e divulgam seus materiais, obras, objetos e documentos.
Copyright (c) 2025 Myrna de Arruda Nascimento https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Museum is Rio: fractions of pain” brings together 25 photomontages created from photographic records taken by the author on July 25, 2025. The visual essay is preceded by a brief theoretical discussion based on concepts formulated by Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses. The route and selection of buildings and monuments, in turn, were defined based on references disseminated by groups and museum institutions dedicated to examining the scars left by the civil-military dictatorship in the central region of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Copyright (c) 2025 Helio Herbst https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Threshold of the frontier: The need for metamorphosis in museums in times of crisis
Museums face boundaries related to the crises of the contemporary world. In societies emptied of meaningful experiences by a predilection for the self, this article aims to reflect on how museums must cross the threshold and undergo metamorphosis. Is openness to listening and dialogue with others the way to mobilize and represent them in these spaces, overcoming indifference and hostility in times of crisis?
Copyright (c) 2025 Tais Helena Cidral Sestrem, Mariana Queiroz Fornari https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
MUSEUMS_OPENINGS_EXCHANGES, viewed as an integrated and non conclusive expression, suggests questions about the formation of collections and about the criteria for conservation of tangible and intangible heritage, based on research into their origins and potential meanings. It evokes curatorial and exhibition design processes capable of sensitizing consciences, inciting debates, and overturning certainties. MUSEUMS_OPENINGS_EXCHANGES points to possibilities for the mediated construction of knowledge. It establishes parallels with the celebrated project of the Uruguayan artist Luis Camnitzer (1937), initiated in 2009 and later unfolded into a series of conceptual installations in defense of the educational-pedagogical character of the museum, a privileged place for learning and establishing connections between artists and the public.
Before the museum: reflections on the artist’s work, the Hangar in Barcelona
The theme of Revista ARA 18, museums_openings_exchanges, invites us to reflect on the possible learnings that take place in museums. This essay proposes to think about artistic practices and their processes, with an emphasis on the support, production, and development of artworks before they enter museum collections or exhibitions. Motivated by a desire to understand how institutions support the stages of artistic creation in art museums—from the conception to the final production of works integrated into the contemporary art system—it asks: What technical and theoretical supports are offered to artists? Under what conditions can they be found? Who are their mentors, tutors, and partners in artistic exchanges, critical thinking, and reflection? If the museum is a school, where and how are the books and materials for its learning produced? The essay takes as its object of study the Hangar Foundation, located in the warehouse of a former factory in the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona—a space of resistance—analyzed here both in relation to its physical structure and to the support it provides for the production of artistic work.
Copyright (c) 2025 Amanda Saba Ruggiero https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This text is part of the theme of the ARA FAU USP Magazine number 18, entitled “Museums, Openings and Exchanges”. Some intricacies are addressed with the questions: 1). did the creation of institutions, like ICOM (International Council of Museums), in 1946 generate changes, or was there already thought of building innovative projects for the museum area before that? 2). Before 1946, would there have been interest in creating an architectural project capable of fostering fruitful exchanges with the general public, or even with authorities? 3). Analyze two situations arising from catastrophes, that is: a) one of the museums, in Porto Alegre, located in a central area, punished by the waters, in 2024, with a prompt response and actions, worthy of note. b) on the other hand, museums in the USA, with a long tradition of good strategies, but punished by the current cultural policy of the country's president, based on financial blackmail and initiated shortly after he took office (01/20/2025), triggered a primary political game of blackmail. 4) What are the viable solutions in this last case?
Copyright (c) 2025 Maria Cecília França Lourenço https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0