We announce the title and concept of Brazil’s entry in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, with (RE)INVENTION, which will occupy the Brazilian Pavilion from May 10 to November 23, 2025, in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil. Curated by the architects Luciana Saboia, Matheus Seco, and Eder Alencar, of the Plano Coletivo group, the project draws on a reflection on the recent archaeological discovery of ancestral infrastructure in the Amazon in order to consider the contradictions and to question the socio-environmental conditions of the contemporary city.
Represented in two acts, (RE)INVENTION builds a narrative that crosses times and territories. In the first act, the exhibition shows how, more than 10,000 years ago, Indigenous peoples shaped the landscapes around them, creating sophisticated infrastructures that integrated technical knowledge and strategies for adapting to the environment.
For Matheus Seco, the word ‘balance’ is fundamental to understanding the overall significance of the curatorial proposal. “Today, we know that the ancestral peoples of the Amazon were organized in much larger populations than previously thought. The region’s forests are largely the direct result of human action, the fruit of a balanced occupation and careful management of the vegetation, in contrast to the model that prevails in the Amazon today, which often reduces the landscape to a scenario of devastation.”
The second act shifts the focus to contemporary Brazil, exploring the nuances of the relationship between architecture and infrastructure, as well as the possibilities of re-signifying the city through a curation of architectural research, processes, and practices. In this way, the focus is on the possibility of recognizing and valuing design strategies and operations that are ‘encapsulated’ in ingenious existing production, inherited, and appropriated.
The Garden-Platform, one of the strategies in the exhibition, shows how a linear structure with a garden along its entire length, which previously required constant irrigation, has been replaced with species that are native or adapted to the temporality of Central Brazil. The naturalistic garden of flowers, grasses, and savanna plants is born, grows, blooms, and dries according to the seasonality of the Central Plateau biome on a large existing platform with a precast, prestressed concrete structure. Following this logic, other strategies are disclosed as inventive design actions that appropriate the existing, create identities, and make the built space an opportunity to reinvent itself as reality.
“We propose an understanding of infrastructure that goes beyond its physical and utilitarian dimension, also taking into account its symbolic and social character. In our curation, we emphasize design strategies that allow for multiple uses and adaptation to context, seeking to transcend the analysis of specific cases to reflect on solutions applicable to different realities,” points out Eder Alencar.
The exhibition space was designed by the curatorial team with minimal elements, using the structure of the Brazilian Pavilion as a support to reconfigure its internal spaces. In the first room, all the elements of the installation rest on the floor. In the second room, the installation is constructed from the balance of CLT panels, stones used as counterweights, and steel cables that form a system that remains suspended and stable when subjected to the forces of action and reaction. In this way, the materials of the installation can be reassembled or recycled in new ways after the exhibition.
According to Luciana Saboia, it is important to discuss architecture based on an understanding and appreciation of natural phenomena and social appropriation: “It’s about mapping actions that build our cultural heritage. Just as these original populations developed sophisticated techniques for occupying and managing the territory, the exhibition seeks to establish a link between tradition and invention, using elements that dialog with the environment and propose a sustainable cycle of construction and reuse,” she says.
Andrea Pinheiro, President of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, points out that the curatorial concept and the architectural design by Saboia, Seco, and Alencar provide a key reflection on the climate emergency and the need to rethink our relationship with the environment. “(RE)INVENTION invites us to learn from ancestral practices and to explore the symbiosis between humans, land, and nature as a path to a more sustainable future. Brazil’s participation in the Venice Biennale, the result of a fruitful partnership with the federal government, highlights the importance of strategies that reconcile a true commitment to the planet.”
The exhibition is in direct dialog with the general theme of this edition, entitled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., proposed by Italian curator Carlo Ratti, who invites the participating countries to reflect on the intersection between natural and artificial intelligence, understanding these two axes as part of an expanded sphere that integrates art, engineering, biology, data science, social and political sciences, planetary systems science, and other disciplines – linking each of them to the materiality of urban space. The Brazilian proposal responds to this provocation by examining how different forms of knowledge – both ancestral and contemporary – shape territories and urban dynamics.
Meet the Plano Coletivo curators
Luciana Saboia is an architect who graduated from the Universidade de Brasília, UnB (1997), she holds a Ph.D. in the theory and history of architecture and the city from the Université Catholique de Louvain, UCLouvain (2009), and is a visiting researcher at the Office for Urbanization at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, GSD (2017). She is a professor at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo at the Universidade de Brasília (FAU Unb) and a researcher with extensive experience in landscape and social appropriation. Saboia develops research focused on the environmental and social transformations of metropolitan peripheries. With international experience, she proposes new strategies for landscape design that reflect her critical and engaged vision of architecture and urbanism
Eder Alencar is an architect, graduated from the Universidade de Brasília, UnB (2010). He is a founding partner of ARQBR Arquitetos, where he develops work that combines the relationship between architecture and the local context with a deep commitment to architectural critique, always seeking to respond to the human and landscape scale of each project. Together with ARQBR, he has a track record of winning awards in major public competitions.
Matheus Seco is an architect, graduated from the Universidade de Brasília, UnB (1999) with a Masters in architectural design from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL (2004). A founding partner of BLOCO Arquitetos, his work reflects an interest in the direct relationship between the project and specific constraints, as well as respect for the local context. Together with BLOCO, he has won awards in national and international competitions for built works.
About Plano Coletivo
Plano Coletivo is a group of architects, teachers, and researchers with diverse interests and backgrounds who freely collaborate around two common goals: to discuss urban territory as a critical narrative and to reflect on architecture as a socio-environmental action.
About Brazil’s participation in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo’s prerogative to officially represent Brazil at the Venice Biennale of Art and Architecture is the result of a decades-long partnership with the Federal Government, which, in recognition of the excellence of its work in the artistic and cultural field, grants the Fundação Bienal the responsibility of appointing the curators and designing and producing the exhibitions. Organized with the aim of promoting Brazilian artistic production at the world’s most traditional art event, the exhibitions take place in the Brazilian Pavilion, designed by Henrique Mindlin and built in 1964.
Service
Brazilian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Exhibition: (RE)INVENTION
Commissioner: Andrea Pinheiro, President of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo
Curators: Luciana Saboia, Eder Alencar and Matheus Seco [Plano Coletivo]
Collaborators: André Velloso, Carolina Pescatori, Cauê Capillé, Daniel Mangabeira, Guilherme Lassance, Henrique Coutinho, Sérgio Marques [Plano Coletivo]
Venue: Brazilian Pavilion
Address: Giardini Napoleonici di Castello, Padiglione Brasile, 30122, Venice, Italy
Date: May 10 to November 23, 2025
Pre-opening: May 8 and 9