Maria Thereza Alves

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Maria Thereza Alves
Born1961 (age 6162)
Education Cooper Union
Occupation(s)Installation artist, video artist, activist, filmmaker, writer
Known forSeeds of Change (1999–now)
MovementConceptual art

Maria Thereza Alves (born 1961) is a Brazilian-born American and German installation artist, video artist, activist, filmmaker, and writer. [1] [2] She lives in Berlin. [3] [4]

Contents

Early life and education

Maria Thereza Alves was born in São Paulo in 1961. When she was a child, her family moved to New York City to escape the dictatorship in Brazil. She attended Cooper Union, and graduated in architecture (BFA 1985). [3]

Career

In 1978, Alves presented at the United Nations Human Rights Committee meeting in Geneva on the indigenous population human rights abuses in Brazil. [3] [5] She is a co-founder of the Partido Verde (or Green Party) of São Paulo in 1987. [3] [5]

Her long-term art project Seeds of Change studies colonialism, slavery, migration, and the global commerce. [6] [7] The series was started in 1999 and focuses on displaced plant seeds used to balance shipping vessels during the colonial period. [8] It has been held in port cities such as Marseille, Reposaari, Liverpool, ExeterTopsham, Dunkirk, Bristol, New York City, and Antwerp. [7] [9] [8]

In 2016, she won the biennial Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics. [7] [10] Her work was part of the group exhibition "Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest" (2018) at Charité medical university. [2] Alves has participated in Documenta (13), Manifesta 12, Sharjah Biennal in 2017, and the Biennale of Sydney in 2020. [3] [11] In 2021, Alves with the mural "Witnesses" was chosen by Associazione Tevereterno Onlus and Fondazione Quadriennale to replace William Kentridge’s mural on the same spot on the Tiber in Rome. [12]

Publications

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References

  1. Checa-Gismero, Paloma (September 2017). "Realism in the Work of Maria Thereza Alves". Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry. 44: 52–63. doi:10.1086/695513. ISSN   1465-4253.
  2. 1 2 Yawitz, Adela (2018-06-18). "Curators Test Ties Between Science, Art, and The Colonial Imagination". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Intra-Disciplinary Seminar Public Lecture: Maria Thereza Alves A'85". The Cooper Union. Retrieved 2023-06-11.
  4. "Maria Thereza Alves - 32nd Bienal". 32nd Bienal São Paulo. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  5. 1 2 Aloi, Giovanni; Marder, Michael (2023-07-04). Vegetal Entwinements in Philosophy and Art: A Reader. MIT Press. p. 404. ISBN   978-0-262-04779-1.
  6. "Maria Thereza Alves, Seeds of Change: New York—A Botany of Colonization". Vera List Center, The New School. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  7. 1 2 3 Aima, Rahel. "Rahel Aima on Maria Thereza Alves's Seeds of Change". Artforum . Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  8. 1 2 Meier, Allison (2017-11-15). "How the Invasive Plants of New York Represent the City's Colonial Past". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  9. Moffitt, Evan (2018-08-16). "How Nature and Art Reveal the Illogic of Borders". Frieze. No. 197. ISSN   0962-0672 . Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  10. Morgan, Tiernan; Politics, Vera List Center for Art and (2017-10-31). "Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics Conference 2016–2018". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  11. "Biennale Of Sydney Announces 2020 Exhibition: Nirin". Biennale of Sydney. 9 April 2019. Archived from the original on 2020.
  12. "Oltre Triumphs and Laments, sul Tevere arriva Witnesses - Arte". Agenzia ANSA (in Italian). 2021-10-08. Retrieved 2023-06-12.