The 32nd Bienal de São Paulo – Architectural Project Dialogues with Ibirapuera Park

The 32nd Bienal de São Paulo wants to be more permeable and accessible, actively participating in the continuous and collective construction of Ibirapuera Park as a public space, expanding its sense of community. Various artistic projects will be commissioned for the park and the exhibition sees itself as an extension of the garden inside the pavilion. With themes based on matters connected to the environment and ecology, the Foundation understand that the Bienal, as one of the cultural institutions headquartered in the park, should participate in the discussions, activities and studies being developed there by other organs and institutions, as part of our process. The public in the park is one of the target audiences for the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo.

The team at Fundação Bienal de São Paulo has worked in collaboration with other institutions to discuss the park’s different uses. Visits were made to the Manequinho Lopes Arboretum, UMAPAZ Environmental University, the Planetarium, DEMAX (the waste collection system), the Museum of Modern Art (MAM-SP) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC-USP) in order to understand the operational methods at each institution. This strategy makes it possible for the exhibition to consider its own surroundings as the first context for its realization.

The firm Álvaro Razuk Arquitetura has been invited to develop the architectural project and exhibition displays for this Bienal, based on reflections of the spatial logic of the park. The garden thus becomes a model, both metaphorically and methodologically, promoting diversity of space, favoring experiences and activation through the public.

Visual Identity

The visual identity of the 32nd Bienal was developed in collaboration between the curators and the Fundação Bienal design team. The process began with two very distinct ideas: a reference to the signs commonly seen on hiking trails, and the visual appeal of drawings of living things.

After a series of studies, these two ideas were combined and consolidated into a set of guiding principles: animals and plants that are easily recognizable and present in one way or another in Brazil’s cultural and/or natural world taking on simplified features, far from scientific details. The jellyfish, the crab and the manioc root each echo Brazil’s cultural and environmental heritage. The signs are based on elementary geometric shapes, sharply contrasting with the handmade drawings. The yellow, red and blue colors, taken from standard signage, refer to and are evocative of images and ideas such as danger, alert, attention and life. In the juxtaposition of elements, the idea of uncertainty is synthesized as a living entity with which we not only have to coexist, but also relate.