Jorge Menna Barreto, 2019/2020, in partnership with Liverpool Biennial

Jorge Menna Barreto, artist and scholar based at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Postdoc Fellowship at Exhibition Research Lab 2019/2020, in partnership with Liverpool Biennial.

Throughout his practice, 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 our environment. His long-term project Restauro: environmental sculpture was first presented at the 32th Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil (2016) and travelled to the Serpentine Galleries, UK (2017).

Departing from his long-term research on the relationships between agroecology and site-specific art, he will collaborate with researchers, students and staff at Liverpool School of Art and Design on a postdoc fellowship project entitled Environmental  Sculpture. The project runs in parallel to the development of his larger work for Liverpool Biennial 2020.

Barreto is a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and shares his research through lectures, writings and art. He is currently a resident at the Jan Van Eyck Academie, Netherlands.