High-definition video (color, sound)
Filmed on Ash Wednesday (Quarta-Feira de Cinzas in Portuguese, the first day of Lent), Neuenschwander and Guimarães’s work features a colony of ants that embodies the burden of sweeping up Carnival’s excesses from the night before. The soundtrack, echoing samba rhythms, blends ambient sounds from the Brazilian rainforest with matchstick drums. By closely following the ants as they tirelessly carry glossy bits of confetti from ground-level height, the artists juxtapose visions of celebration with themes of collaboration and labor. The video is a reminder of the cyclical nature of festivity and the unseen toll of human activity on animal life and the environment.
2024
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Down to Earth
Gallery 216Today, new generations of architects worldwide are forging close relationships between built structures and the Earth’s surface. This approach sharply contrasts with that of their modernist predecessors from the early and mid-20th century, who intentionally raised living spaces from soil—then viewed as a source of humidity, insects, and disease.
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