Martinópolis, São Paulo, Brazil, 1978.
Lives and works in São Paulo.

Lia D Castro’s artistic practice offers an approach to art that goes beyond her own paintings, texts, and installations. It encompasses the complexity of society and seeks to build more meaningful and inclusive narratives and lived experiences that have been overlooked in museums and art galleries.

For the past 10 years, Lia D Castro has worked as an educator, sex worker, transgender rights activist and gives antiracism and anti-transphobia lectures in art institutions, as well as in national and multinational companies. She also has interests in areas such as hate criminology, anthropology, behavioral psychology, and sociology.

Full of meanings and resonances, Lia D Castro’s paintings reflect on gender and race hierarchies, art history, transphobia, and biased notions of femininity, in works that invite the viewer to examine them closely. A powerful call to action, emphasizing the importance of representation and inclusivity.

In 2024, Lia D Castro presented two institutional solo exhibitions - at MASP, São Paulo, and at Museu Paranaense, in Curitiba. In January 2023 she had her first solo show “Reflected Complicity” at Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo – Brazil, and in April 2023 “Those who are worthy of being loved” at Galeria Jaqueline Martins, Brussels – Belgium, with a curatorial text by Mohamed Almusibli. She recently was part of group exhibitions including “Middle Gate III” curated by Philippe Van Cauteren in Geel, Belgium; “Hors de la nuit des normes, hors de l’énorme ennui” curated by Clement Raveu and Valentina d’Avenia at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; “Dos Brasis: Arte e Pensamento Negro” curated by Igor Simões at Sesc, São Paulo; “Art of Treasure Hunt - Women in Tuscany” organized by Luziah Hennessy among diverse locations such as Castello AMA, Castello di Brolio, Borgo San Felice, Colle Beretto, Villa Geggiano - Italy. In 2022 she presented the solo show “Axs Nossxs Filhxs” at Instituto Çare, São Paulo – Brazil, among others. Her work is part of private and institutional collections including S.M.A.K. Ghent among others.

Brasília, 1982
Lives and works in Goiânia.

Dalton Paula holds a degree in Visual Arts, is an educator, and is the founder of Sertão Negro Ateliê and School of Arts, established in 2021. He explores representations of Black bodies in the African diaspora, spanning from the colonial period to contemporary times, weaving symbolic healing through historical-social, economic, and psychological dimensions. The contexts of terreiros (religious spaces), quilombos (communities of escaped slaves), suburbs, and traditional celebrations shape his research, extending to the quilombo-school, guiding artistic and educational actions that strengthen the community, constructing a powerful space for the emancipation and autonomy of individuals.

Dalton received the CHANEL Next Prize in 2024, the same year he was invited to participate in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Adriano Pedrosa; in 2023, the Soros Arts Fellowship Prize from the Open Society Foundation.; in 2022, he held the exhibition “Rota do Algodão” at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo and the solo exhibition “Retratos Brasileiros” at MASP. In 2021, he participated in the exhibition “Enciclopédia Negra” at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, and in 2020, his first solo exhibition, “Dalton Paula: o sequestrador de Almas,” took place in New York at the Alexander and Bonin Gallery. In 2019, he was one of the five awardees of the 7th edition of the CNI SESI SENAI Marcantonio Vilaça Award for Plastic Arts and exhibited in the “36th Panorama of Brazilian Art: Sertão” at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo (MAM). In 2018, he was selected for the Triennial “Songs for Sabotage” at the New Museum in New York, USA. He also participated in the 11th Visual Arts Biennial of Mercosur - “The Atlantic Triangle” in Porto Alegre/RS and presented works in the exhibition “Afro-Atlantic Histories” (MASP and Instituto Tomie Ohtake). In 2017, he took part in the exhibition “The Atlantic Triangle” (Instituto Goethe, Lagos/Nigeria), and in 2016, he was one of the invited artists for the 32nd São Paulo Biennial.

USA, 1949
Berlin, Germany, 2021

Jimmie Durham was an artist, designer, poet, and writer. In 2019,
he was awarded the Golden Lion for his work as a whole at the 58th
International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.
Durham grew up in a family of woodcarvers and began working
in avant-garde theater and writing poetry in 1963, during the civil
rights movement in the United States. Since the 1990s, Durham’s
work has focused mainly on the relationship between architecture,
monumentality, and national narratives.

He has participated in several
international exhibitions, including Documenta (1992, 2012, 2023), the
Whitney Biennale in New York (1993, 2003, 2014), the Venice Biennale
(1999, 2001, 2003, 2013, 2019), and the Istanbul Biennial (1997, 2013).
Retrospectives of his works have been exhibited at the MuHKA in
Antwerp (2012), the Musee d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2009),
and the MAC in Marseille. In 2017, a retrospective covering the 1970s to
the present day was shown at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the
Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Whitney Museum of American
Art in New York, and the Remai Modern in Saskatoon. In 2016, he
received the Emperor’s Ring from the city of Goslar, and the Robert
Rauschenberg Award in 2017.