Portas Vilaseca celebrates Nádia Taquary’s participation in the 36th São Paulo Biennial, one of the most important contemporary art exhibitions in the world, which opens to the public on 6 September at the Cicillo Matarazzo Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park.

The artist’s practice investigates the rich cultural currents of pre-colonial Africa, invoking the centrality of Black femininity as a guiding principle in her work. Her sculptures and installations function as channels of ancestral wisdom, imbued with vibrant colours and symbolic motifs drawn from African cosmologies.

In this edition, Taquary presents bronze sculptures that evoke African myths and ancestors. Her bird-woman figures pay homage to a sacred tree, considered, in African-derived traditions, to be the first ever planted. The pieces merge body and nature, matter and memory, and occupy the space as ancestral guardians around a monumental tree made up of thousands of glass beads.

Inspired by the work of Conceição Evaristo and guided by the concept Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice, this year’s Biennial is curated by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, with a team that includes Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, Thiago de Paula Souza, and Keyna Eleison.

More information: 36.bienal.org.br

Info

36th São Paulo Biennial
6 September 2025 – 11 January 2026
Fundação Bienal
Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, s/n, Ibirapuera Park, Gate 3, São Paulo
Free admission | Suitable for all ages