Artefatos do Sul

Farol Santander, Porto Alegre, April 2024
Curator

The exhibition “Artifacts from the South – Legacies of German and Italian Immigration” celebrates Brazilian cultural plurality, by focusing on the still little known and analyzed design developed by European immigrants in southern Brazil. Furniture, work tools, construction elements, toys and household utensils made between the second half of the 19th century and the initial decades of the 20th century combine the memories, customs and techniques brought by immigrants from their homeland, on the one hand, and the conditions and materials they found in their adopted land, on the other. The social imaginary of the time comes to life in photographs, immortalizing memorable moments of families, postcards sent or received by immigrants, paintings with popular sayings and graphic prints. The works are part of the Tina and Calito de Azevedo Moura collection, collected over the last five decades in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul (the majority), Santa Catarina and Paraná. The exhibition is superlative: there are 1,055 pieces occupying an area of more than 1,100 m2 in the monumental space of Farol Santander Porto Alegre. It is held in the year in which the 200th anniversary of German immigration to Rio Grande do Sul and the 150th anniversary of Italian immigration to Brazil are celebrated.