Studio grant holder in Stockholm 1 October 2020 – 15 October 2021

Tatiana Pinto. Born 1978 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Lives and works in Stockholm.

My work combines activism with artistic research, particularly in relation to architecture. Perceiving buildings as engines for social change, I unveil and expose neglected narratives of the built environment in order to advocate anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-racist and decolonial spaces in our cities and society.

Photo: Tatiana Pinto

My artistic practice also reflects upon my own responsibilities as an architect, and my position as an artist engaging in social and political struggles. Experimenting with different media, my interdisciplinary approach uses art spaces as one platform for public engagement.

While at Iaspis, I will research and prepare Act 3 of Trialogue, a tripartite play/performance about architecture, politics, sexism, fascism, colonialism, modernism and personal responsibility. Acts 1 and 2 centred on the meeting of three existing characters and voices, confronting different narratives in order to write a counter-history. Act 3 is a conversation between Oscar Niemeyer, the most prominent Brazilian architect and an icon of Brazilian modernism; trained architect Aida Boal; and anarcho-feminist writer Maria Lacerda de Moura. Their dialogue will contest the persistent myth of Brasilia as an acclaimed progressive modern realisation. Bringing to light the fact that Niemeyer’s 1960 Senate House didn’t include female toilets until 2015, Act 3 evidences the homogenisation, segregation and exclusion inherent to the modernist project. The absence of the toilets — not to mention the normalisation of this architectural deficiency for 55 years — demonstrates the various degrees of violence architecture can perpetrate. Trialogue holds architects accountable for the conservative political agenda present within their designs. Further, Trialogue envisions how different Brazil’s politics would be today if Brasilia had been designed by and for women.

I am trained as an architect at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. I worked in the field for more than 10 years, both in my own practice and collaborating with others. I hold a master’s degree in Sustainable Architecture from Bologna University and a master’s degree from Bartlett Development Planning Unit at University College of London. Currently, I collaborate with the post-master course ‘Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies’ at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Trialogue Act1 was presented at Manifesta 12 in 2018 in Palermo and here in Stockholm at the Italian Institute of Culture in 2019.