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
Autores que publicam nesta revista concordam com os seguintes termos: Os autores mantêm os direitos autorais e concedem à revista o direito de primeira publicação, com o trabalho simultaneamente licenciado sob a Licença CreativeCommonsAttribution CC-BY que permite o compartilhamento do trabalho com reconhecimento da autoria e publicação inicial nesta revista. Os autores têm autorização para assumir contratos adicionais separadamente, para distribuição não exclusiva da versão do trabalho publicada nesta revista (ex.: publicar em repositório institucional ou como capítulo de livro), com reconhecimento de autoria e publicação inicial nesta revista. Os autores têm permissão e são estimulados a publicar e distribuir seu trabalho on-line (ex.: em repositórios institucionais ou na sua página pessoal) a qualquer ponto antes ou durante o processo editorial, já que isso pode gerar alterações produtivas, bem como aumentar o impacto e a citação do trabalho publicado (Veja O Efeito do Acesso Livre).
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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
Between the Museum and the Factory: Curatorial Practices and Critical Reinterpretations of the Exhibition Andy Warhol: Pop Art (2025)
This article takes the exhibition Andy Warhol: Pop Art! (MAB-FAAP, 2025), conceived in partnership with The Andy Warhol Museum, as its starting point to discuss the political, aesthetic, and cultural reach of the artist's work in the contemporary context. The analysis focuses on the curatorial challenges involved in presenting Warhol to the Brazilian public, considering the tensions between his canonical legacy and critical approaches based on decolonial studies and historiographical revisions. The main thematic sections of the show are examined, along with their architectural and exhibition solutions, as well as the educational devices mobilized, emphasizing the timeliness of Warhol's work as a critical tool for mass culture and visuality in contemporary art.
Copyright (c) 2025 Priscyla Freitas Gomes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The emergence of the contemporary in the theoretical-curatorial project L’informe: mode d’emploi, by Rosalind Krauss and Yve-Alain Bois
This arcticle reflects on the theoretical-curatorial project L’informe: mode d’emploi, by Rosalind Krauss and Yve-Alain Bois, which resulted in the exhibition of the same name at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1996. To this end, it discusses the philosophical meaning present in the author’s reabilitation of the concept of “formless” from Georges Bataille and suggests that such a strategy has an eminently contemporary meaning, parituclarly due to its proximity to Jean-François Lyotard’s idea of “rewriting modernity” and Jean-Luc Nancy’s idea of “self-reflection of art”.
Copyright (c) 2025 Leonardo Rodrigues https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
University Museum as a Space for Creation, Teaching and Transformation: the Trânsitos Excêntricos Artist Residency
This article examines the Trânsitos Excêntricos residency, held at the Leopoldo Gotuzzo Art Museum, as a curatorial practice that repositions the university museum as a space for creation, listening, and critical formation. The research addresses eccentric and decolonial curating, taking migration as its conceptual and methodological axis. By activating collaborative processes among artists, curators, students, and audiences, the residency proposes the museum as a laboratory for experimentation and co-learning, challenging institutional and epistemological hierarchies. The experience highlights the potential of artistic residencies as devices for institutional transformation and for expanding contemporary curatorial practices.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ana Avelar, Lauer dos Santos https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Marianne Nassuno: the line and the tonality of dis-appearance
This paper discusses the New Exhibition Cycle of the Casa da Cultura da América Latina (House of Latin American Culture–CAL), which, in the absence of a formal university art museum, functions as the cultural diffusion center of the Universidade de Brasília (University of Brasília–UnB). The study focuses on the relevance of this cycle due to its capacity to promote intersections between artists, musicians and researchers, reflecting a model of transversal and collaborative cultural production. The analysis of this new project centers on the exhibition Aquilo que Des-Aparece (That with Dis-Appers) by the artist Marianne Nassuno (2025), whose works, beyond their aesthetic value, provoke reflections on bodily stereotypes, image saturation and social inequalities. Nassuno’s presence at CAL reaffirms the space as a hub of critical production, characterized by conceptual density, theoretical depth, and critical engagement with contemporary sociocultural issues.
Copyright (c) 2025 Yasmin Mota Nascimento https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Heritage preservation of afro-brazilian memory and materiality: the case of the Cristóvão Lopes dos Anjos Memorial in Terreiro do Pantanal (RJ)
The emergence of museum practice in Brazil began in the first decade of the 19th century, with the creation of the National Museum through a decree issued by Dom João VI. However, this museum and others that have emerged since the 19th century did not consider certain groups or materialities and did not advocate certain approaches. Nowadays, Candomblé terreiros are moving in the opposite direction to the museum tradition of official memory institutions, encouraging the emergence of new perspectives and approaches that include Afro-diasporic cultural and religious memories, whether through museums or memorials. Nonetheless, this article seeks to analyze issues of memory and materiality, the patrimonialization of memory and the construction of an Afro-religious Memory Institution (the Cristóvão Lopes dos Anjos Memorial, in the mother terreiro of the Efon Nation, Ilé Oloroke Ògún Anaeji Ìgbéle ni Oman, the Terreiro do Pantanal).
Copyright (c) 2025 Caio de Oliveira Antunes Victorino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Museum spaces and the (de)colonization of knowledge: reflections from CEMAARQ/FCT-Unesp
Prompted by the need to revise the exhibition design of the Center for Museology, Anthropology, and Archaeology at Unesp, critical work began to develop a new perspective on the museum, a process that is portrayed in this work. This perspective is empirically anchored in ethnographic incursions into the Vanuíre Indigenous Territory and theoretically grounded in references that discuss systems of power and the decoloniality of knowledge.
Copyright (c) 2025 Paulo Eduardo Valerio Barbulho, Thamine de Almeida Ayoub Ayoub https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Space, Power and Perplexity: Exhibition Design as an Emancipatory Practice
This article explores how spatial organization influences power and perception, from the Athenian Pnyx to contemporary exhibitions. It examines exhibition design as a political tool for emancipation or domination, and discusses the challenge of engaging audiences through approaches that turn visitors into active participants in challenging situations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Fellipe Brum, Rachel de Sousa Vianna https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Between Memory and Light: Heritage Retrofit, Active Museology, and Photovoltaic Architecture at Moscow’s GES 2
This article examines the adaptive reuse of the GES-2 power plant in Moscow, originally built in 1907 and recently transformed into a sustainable cultural center. It highlights the photovoltaic roof as both a symbolic and pedagogical element, bridging architecture, museology, and energy. GES-2 is interpreted as a manifesto of energy citizenship and active memory, with inspiring potential for critical retrofit practices in Latin America.
Copyright (c) 2025 Roberto Zilles, Ricardo Calabrese https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The collection of the Historical and Artistic Museum of Maranhão: collections in contact
This study discusses the collection of the Historical and Artistic Museum of Maranhão based on the Central Bank and Bozano collections that are part of the institution's holdings. Based on research and analysis of the items, works by artists active in Brazil from the early decades of the 20th century to the present day are taken as examples, highlighting their potential for teaching Art and Art History.
Historical and Artistic Museum of Maranhão
Copyright (c) 2025 Frederico F. S. Silva https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“A living collection is a collection in relation”: interview with José Eduardo Ferreira Santos on the Acervo da Laje
This interview with José Eduardo Ferreira Santos offers a detailed and moving portrait of the Acervo da Laje – a community-based initiative founded in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil) by José Eduardo and Vilma Santos. Conceived as a House-Museum-School, over the past fifteen years the Acervo has developed into a vibrant site for the preservation, activation, and circulation of peripheral, Black, and popular memories. Grounded in listening, research, and everyday pedagogy, it puts forward a living museology shaped by belonging, care, and aesthetic experience. Throughout the conversation, José Eduardo reflects on the assembling of collections, the importance of the Subúrbio Ferroviário de Salvador, the educational dimension of the project, curatorial approaches rooted in astonishment, and the interplay between material and immaterial heritage. He also addresses institutional partnerships, sustainability, and the role of the Acervo in creating spaces for collective memory-making. The interview stands as a powerful testimony to grounded, politically committed museum practices.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ana Carolina Roman Rodrigues https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The decolonial turn in the arts and the dispute over the space of Indigenous art
Increasingly, art curatorships and exhibitions have turned to identity-based and ethnographic issues, aiming to give greater visibility to subjects and works previously considered “minor”, while also engaging in a kind of self-reflection on the principles that once legitimized their existence - a process some authors have referred to as the decolonial turn in the arts. By focusing on modes of representation and indigenous authorship in two contemporary art exhibitions, the 24th São Paulo Biennial (1998) and Histórias Mestiças (2014), this article seeks to reflect on the limits and potentialities of this ongoing process within both national and international art spheres.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jessica Seabra, Lara Brisante Fernandes, Ruy Sardinha Lopes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Atmosphere and Perception: A Phenomenological Study of the Iberê Camargo Museum
The article proposes a phenomenological reflection on the Iberê Camargo Museum, investigating how Álvaro Siza’s architecture induces sensitive experiences. The research is applied, qualitative, and exploratory, articulating phenomenology and environmental psychology with an emphasis on the concept of atmosphere. Four units of analysis were defined and observed in loco by two researchers, who recorded the spatial experience in motion. The adopted methodology proved effective in identifying and interpreting design strategies, revealing the recurrence of perceptions among observers and demonstrating that it is possible to foresee sensitive effects even during the design phase. Through the direct experience of space, it becomes evident how light, materiality, and path intertwine in the creation of atmospheres that amplify the meaning of the exhibition
Copyright (c) 2025 Isabela Maria Fiori, Aloísio Leoni Schmid, Luiz Gustavo Grochoski Singeski https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A presente edição da ARA, PYAU, produzida entre a primavera e o verão de 2024-2025, foi subdividida em dois fascículos. O primeiro, lançado no final de 2024, reuniu o Dossiê GMP, no qual foram apresentadas reflexões do Grupo Museu/Patrimônio em torno do tema Memória na encruzilhada: desmaterialização da experiência e hipertrofia do testemunho, e o Caderno Especial em Homenagem à Vida de Luiz Recamán (Fig. 1 e 2), exaltando-se o comprometimento do nosso editor, precocemente ausente, com o saber e sua difusão. O segundo fascículo, que ora se apresenta, reúne cinco artigos, uma resenha e um ensaio visual submetidos e aprovados em processo de avaliação duplo-cega, mantendo-se no horizonte os ideais de Recamán e a provocação-tema lançada pela pesquisadora e filósofa Adrienne Firmo, membro do GMP. Em comum entre as contribuições inéditas, formuladas a partir de relações entre experiência, testemunho e memória, o empenho de se examinar os mecanismos de processamento e transmissão de nossa história e identidade cultural.
Copyright (c) 2025 Myrna de Arruda, Helio Herbst https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Lucy Huskinson. Architecture and mimetic self: A psychoanalytic study of how buildings make and break our lives
The review emphasizes key aspects of Architecture and mimetic self: A psychoanalytic study of how buildings make and break our lives by British philosopher Lucy Huskinson. The author argues for the crucial role of architecture in the formation and transformation of the Self, driven by what she describes as the architectural event. This event is initiated by the embodied experience combined with the individual's memory in interaction with the constructed environment.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ulisses Resende Castro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The visual essay is materialized through digital collages and instigates the investigation of how iconic architectures are able to relate to each other in different contexts.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mateus Sampaio Freinkel Rodrigues, Luana Jackeline Alves Farias https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The implications of adaptive reuse in Modern Movement buildings: the case of the Londrina bus station
The Londrina Bus Station, designed by Vilanova Artigas and Carlos Cascaldi, is a landmark of modern architecture in Brazil. Built in the 1950s, its preservation and adaptive reuse are central themes, especially after interventions for its conversion into a museum. The article discusses the compatibility between new uses and the original architecture.
Copyright (c) 2025 Priscila Fonseca da Silva, Sidnei Junior Guadanhim https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Alligators 427” by H.F. Thiéfaine, an allegorical and poetic testimony to death and nuclear danger
In this essay we analyse how the song “Alligators 427”, by French singer and poet Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine, creates and reconstructs an apocalyptic image underlying the dangers of nuclear energy. We take as our theoretical anchor Stuart Hall on the importance of music in society, according to whom music is “the sound of what cannot be” (Sovik, 2023, n/p.). Our reading is therefore centred on the musical domain and the historical and cultural scenario in which it takes part, namely that involving the conflict: a protest song against nuclear energy at the French power station of Fessenheim. One of the focuses of our text lies in analysing the lyrics and the narrative created by the artist and poet, which will allow us to understand how he represents an idea of war and death through metaphor and how, to quote Nina Felshin, “artists engage in an active process of representation” (Felshin, 2006, n/p.). This analysis will show how war induced uncertainty and instability and, above all, the prevalence of the threat of death, as Freud argued in his letter to Einstein, “the death instinct is transformed into a destructive instinct” (Einstein, 1991, n/p.).
Copyright (c) 2025 Mário José Avelar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In order to analyze the original architectural design of the Congonhas Airport Passenger Terminal, its renovations and mischaracterizations, the text refers to the concepts of place and non-place. Present in urban memory, the Terminal is an example of art deco, with proto-modernist features; graced with artistic murals. Its original architecture was partially preserved, but its concept was lost. The terraces and small beaches that allowed visitors to watch the planes fly by were lost. Soon, the original place was transformed into an airport of international standards: a non-place.
Copyright (c) 2025 Wesley Macedo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Luiz Antônio Recamán Barros, docente do departamento de História da Arquitetura e Estética do Projeto da FAU USP, é neste caderno homenageado como amigo, colega, professor e Editor Chefe da revista ARA.
Copyright (c) 2024 Suely Franco, Givaldo Medeiros, Amanda Ruggiero, Marcos Rizolli, Jaime Carmona, Raphael Grazziano, Fernanda Magalhães, Lise Silvany, Mariana Wilderom, Paulo Antônio Sinisgalli, Cristina Adams, Lizete Rubano, Ruy Sardinha, Carolina Nakahara, Regina Félix, Maria Leônidas Rezende, Guiomar Grammont, Maria Cecília Lourenço https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This issue of ARA, PYAU, scheduled to be published between spring and summer 2024, has a peculiar format: it will be divided into two issues. This one, which we present here, in the final days of this year, with the publication of the GMP Dossier and the Special Supplement in Tribute to the Life of our editor Luiz Recamán, and a subsequent one, with the articles submitted and approved by the reviewers, for ARA Magazine 17, volume 17, issue , which we intend to finalize in March 2025.
Copyright (c) 2024 Myrna Arruda Nascimento https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0