Jorge Menna Barreto

Throughout his practice as an artist and researcher, Barreto has let specific sites determine what he will build and, more recently, what he will eat. Interested in agroforestry, land art, site-specificity, plant-based food and multispecies assemblages, he considers our digestive system as a sculptural tool that has the ability to shape and regenerate the environment. His award-winning, long-term project Restauro: environmental sculpture was first presented at the 32nd Bienal of São Paulo in 2016 and travelled to the Serpentine Galleries in London, in 2017. In residency at the Jan van Eyck he worked collaboratively with Joélson Buggilla at the Food Lab, the Lab for Nature Research and the Printing & Publishing Lab, attempting to create an ecosystem that short circuits the surface of the page, the surface of the earth and the food on our plates.