REFRAMING BRAZIL

Examining architecture as an entangled system, as form rather than meaningless shapes, a multi scalar, interdisciplinary discussion is proposed. In order to consider how the production of architecture is yoked to the commodification of human and non-human resources, it becomes imperative to unveil the power structures behind this process.

Reframing Brazil offers an incomplete critical panorama of a logic of production and consumption, which operates at a local and a global scale. Visualizing this underlying logic, one returns to the start of the material chain, rewinding its processes and making visible the essential abstractions at their core. This work contests the alienation of the final building from its territories of neocolonial extraction, exposing which landscapes are left behind.

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It is an unfinished process: a collaborative platform that discusses possibilities towards human emancipation beyond national identities or state borders. Questions regarding the material nature of architecture are raised: How to represent the layers of extraction that a built project underpins? Who narrates this story and for whom? Beyond the material plane, drawings illustrate conditions in Brazil, which despite their ties to specific places, can be found in other parts of the world.

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The drawings project a subversion of universalizing settler societies by appropriating their ethos and revealing its negative. Films and Projects bring propositions from diverse authors into dialog. Interviews bridge the discussion with the present moment, rehearsing potential forms of action. And the fundraising enables manifold practical outcomes. Through multiple subjects, the research illustrates phenomena and abstractions towards a discussion on the meanings of building as the materialization of architectural form.