Programação

A River Does Not Exist Alone

Exhibition

from October 03 to December 30, 2025
FREE ENTRY PARQUE EMÍLIO GOELDI – BELÉM, PA

Current

paulagiordano.Rio Navegacao Site.Bx.Cor-1
A River Does Not Exist Alone
Curators: Sabrina Fontenele and Vânia Leal

The Instituto Tomie Ohtake, located in São Paulo, will celebrate its 25 years of existence in 2026. Over this trajectory, which for years has extended into other territories, the exhibition A River Does Not Exist Alone represents an important milestone in reflecting on our collective future.

Founded by a family from the Asian diaspora, the Instituto shaped its institutional identity from the outset through openness to others and to the new. It has fostered vital connections between territories and different forms of social organization, life, and culture, becoming a space for encounters and for presenting diverse landscapes and cultures, with a keen eye on the arts and their intersections with education, design, architecture, and knowledge systems—far beyond Western frameworks..

Over these more than two decades of work, the crises that affect us—climatic, political, social, and existential—have made even more explicit our need to coexist with differences and create alliances for a fairer and more sustainable world. In this sense, the role of art and poetic practices is fundamental, offering unique and indispensable spaces to perceive, feel, and translate the complexities of our world, while imagining other ways to build and inhabit it.

A River Does Not Exist Alone condenses and celebrates much of this trajectory and of our understanding of the role of a cultural institution today, both in Brazil and globally. Nothing exists alone—neither rivers, nor people, nor social organizations, nor countries—and we are all part of this circle of life. Working together is the first step to contributing, in some way, to ensuring that the many worlds endure and coexist, beginning with the privilege of engaging and learning from the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, which for over a century has conceived the Amazon as a universe.

For us, the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) is an opportunity to give visibility to artists, knowledges, and creations connected to ecological thinking, expanding our repertoire regarding life on Earth. However, it is important to note that the conference itself is not our primary focus: our purpose is art, life, and the sharing of the world.

The Instituto Tomie Ohtake is grateful to the Ministry of Culture, which, through the Federal Cultural Incentive Law (Lei Rouanet), has made the exhibition A River Does Not Exist Alone possible, and the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, whose support was fundamental for the realization of this project. We also extend our gratitude to our sponsors: Nubank, the institutional supporter of the Instituto Tomie Ohtake; AkzoNobel, gold sponsor; Aché Laboratórios Farmacêuticos, silver sponsor; and PepsiCo, bronze sponsor.

ARTISTAS PARTICIPANTES
Déba Tacana
Ceramicist and visual artist of Indigenous and Romani ancestry (Porto Velho – RO, 1988). Her work addresses the transformation of borders and contexts of human rights violations through processes of displacements, collection, and the analysis of political fictions. The installation 'Luz que Ança' fictionalizes the present in relation to COP 30, tensioning the crisis of imagination as that which modifies ways of living on the planet. Composed of ceramic pieces with varied engravings made with fused glass, Déba’s work glimmers, pointing toward a formulation, in a world in catastrophe, that intertwines past, present, and ancestral future of what cannot be separated: the child from the adult; the young woman from the elder; the woman from the animal.
Elaine Arruda
Visual artist (Belém – PA, 1985). For over a decade, she has immersed herself in Porto do Sal, a complex located on the Guajará Bay, in the historic center of Belém. The installation 'Entoar o vento e dançar marés' unfolds from an immersion in the Tijuquaquara River, where her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Terezinha de Jesus Martins Andrade, was born. The boat journeys represent a return to these waters and a dive into the ancestry of three generations of women: herself, her mother, and her grandmother. In search of this bond, the metaphor of the boat’s movement on the water and of the tidal cycles—rising and receding—prevails , evoking the challenging complexities of crossings that intertwine memory, encounter, and time. By confronting familial roles, dependencies, and finitude, the artist positions herself as a guardian of women’s stories and memories.
Estúdio Flume
Founded in 2015 by architects Christian Teshirogi and Noelia Monteiro, stands out for its approach to architecture as a tool for social impact. The studio works from conception to execution, focusing on initiatives that generate better economic and social opportunities, especially in rural communities and those far from urban centers in Brazil. Among its most notable projects are 'Centro de Referência das Quebradeiras de Babaçu (MA)' and 'Casa do Mel (PA)', which exemplify how architecture can dialogue with local techniques and materials to promote community development in a conscious and responsible way. This social and sustainable approach has earned them important recognition, such as a highlight at the 9th Prêmio Arquitetura Tomie Ohtake Akzo Nobel for 'Centro de Referência das Quebradeiras de Babaçu', as well as the international Call for Solutions award in Italy. At the Zoobotanical Park of the Museu Goeldi, Estúdio Flume designed the pavilion that houses the exhibition’s Educational Space, using local resources and technologies such as wood and ubuçu straw.
Francelino Mesquita
Artist and sculptor (Belém – PA, 1976) who works with natural materials such as bucha do miriti (or buriti), jupati splints, the root of mututi, cuia pitinga, wood, and other materials. His sculptures challenge perceptions of form and balance, most of them taking the shape of mobiles. In this exhibition, the artist reflects on environmental education, climate crisis, and the extinction of ancestral artisanal techniques whose production chains depend on natural resources. Proteja-me is an installation that seeks to raise awareness about protecting nature as a way of mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis, as well as safeguarding human existence. The installation Proteção ambiental takes the form of an Indigenous headdress and emphasizes the importance of forest peoples’ activism in resisting the destructive actions on the Amazon rainforest.
Gustavo Caboco
Artist of the Wapichana people (Curitiba/Roraima, 1989). In Caboco’s work, we encounter devices for reflecting on the displacement of Indigenous bodies, the processes of valuing Indigenous cultures, and the right to memory. 'Casa de bicho' is an installation conceived from the Zoobotanical Park of the Museu Goeldi. Composed of hammocks, mats, and embroidered pillows, the artist creates an environment to contemplate the present and dream about the land, observe the “rivers in the sky,” collect samaúma cotton, and listen to stories, activating a practice of permanence and belonging. 'Antibatismo: Victoria Regia' delves into the complex history of the Amazonian plant whose name was given by botanist John Lindley in honor of Queen Victoria of England. The artist questions the act of “baptism” as well as naming practices as forms of colonial violence, revealing the power and erasure relationships in the formation of Indigenous subjectivity within the Brazilian imaginary.
Mari Nagem
Interdisciplinary artist (Belo Horizonte – MG, 1984) whose work investigates environmental transformations through technology and the artificiality of landscapes. The work '41°C' is inspired by a tragic and unprecedented event: the historic 2023 drought at Lake Tefé in the Amazon, which raised the water temperature to 41°C and caused the death of dozens of river dolphins. Based on satellite image analysis and dialogues with scientists, the artist created thermal representations with vivid colors and sharp edges, evoking the waters of a river that floods the Zoobotanical Park of the Museu Goeldi as both a reminder and a warning: rivers are keen witnesses of climate change, and we are increasingly close to experiencing irreversible damage.
Noara Quintana
Visual artist (Florianópolis – SC, 1986), challenges the colonial imaginary through practices that explore the boundaries between geometry, poetics, and politics, focused on narratives from the Global South. In 'Tela d’água', Noara has investigated the registers of Swiss zoologist Emílio Goeldi’s collection, recreating with pigmented rubber a canvas that invites the public to catch a glimpse of the fauna and flora of the Amazon. Installed at the Zoobotanical Park of Museu Goeldi, the work seeks a direct relationship with the life inhabiting the site. By highlighting endangered species, the artist underscores the fragility of the ecosystem and points to the urgency of its preservation.
PV Dias
Visual artist (Belém – PA, 1994) whose practice explores the relationship between the physical and digital worlds, operating across multiple languages—such as painting, photography, video, and digital arts—guided by the perspective of a counter-colonizing gesture. As part of the exhibition, he designed Paisagens commodities onto the façade of Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira Auditorium at Museu Goeldi. With striking effects and animations, the video mapping gathers photographs from Museu Goeldi’s collection, depicting developmentalist initiatives that have left traces of environmental destruction in the Amazon. Paisagem Rio-Bauxita, Rio-Petróleo, Rio-Soja, Fumaça-Manganês, Rio-Ouro, Céu-Vermelho, Rio-Esgotado, Rio-Enxuto, and Rio-Seco combine archival photographs with new records that merge into the rivers, houses, and the Amazonian landscape. Through five different videos, the artist seeks to make visible within the landscape what has been taken away from it.
Rafael Segatto
Visual artist (Vitória – ES, 1992) who works across diverse techniques and languages, including photography, video, installation, writing, aesthetic experiences, and rituals. His practice is deeply tied to the sea and to lives shaped by the tides, while seeking to uncover other temporalities and ways of existing. His installation 'Enquanto correm as águas' consists of a set of five wooden panels crossed by oars, their colors evoking the movement of naval vessels in the shipyards of Vitória—using materials resistant to climatic variations. The colors unfold multiple layers of meaning: in blue, the sky; in the orange-red, traces of the artist’s memories; in black, the coal used for spiritual cleansing; and in white, both the inscribed marks of Afro-Brazilian terreiros and the limestone present in navigations. The artist draws a cartography as a form of communication with sailors, seafarers, and navigators—both visible and invisible.
Sallisa Rosa
Visual artist (Goiânia – GO, 1986) who uses art as an intuitive path, exploring fiction, territory, and nature. Her artistic practice is marked by an interest in memory, forgetfulness, and the construction of futures through large-scale installations in public spaces. Working with a wide range of materialities, such as clay, ceramics, collected objects, and constructions, her trajectory is guided by a commitment to collective practices, sharing knowledges and experiences. 'A terra esculpe a água' is an installation made of clay, consisting of a spherical wattle-and-daub structure, that reflects on the ancestral relationship between earth and water. The artist draws inspiration from the landscape of Northern Brazil, where nature reveals how water and earth meet, creating mysterious shapes and pathways. This process directly contrasts with the urban environment, where rivers are confined by concrete and channelized. With this work, the artist emphasizes the urgency of caring for the waters, reminding us that, despite distances, all waters on the planet remain interconnected.
Credits
Photo
Paula Giordano
Learn more about the exhibition
Editorial: An exhibition does not exist alone
Just as a river does not exist alone, an exhibition also cannot be created without embracing diversities—of artists, spaces, visitors, and all the others that are part of life. Unlike a traditional exhibition model, where the space is prepared to receive works and ensure that, by the end of the process, they remain exactly the same, in the Zoobotanical Park of Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi they breathe along with the environment: sun, rain, animals, plants, and time shape their existence. Every detail—from grass to sloth, from mud to fungus—actively participates in adapting to a living and dynamic context. Building a contemporary art exhibition in an open space, where hundreds of beings—human and non-human—circulate or live daily, is no simple task. From the very beginning of planning, negotiations were constant, with the museum’s staff acting as spokes people for other forms of life. After all, one does not enter someone’s home without asking permission, especially in a place like the Museu Goeldi, which is about to celebrate 130 years of history. In its early years, the institution was called Museu Paraense de História Natural e Ethnografia, with its origins in the Associação Philomática, founded by Brazilian naturalist Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna. The Swiss-German naturalist Emílio Goeldi (Émil August Goeldi) arrived in Pará in 1886, with the goal of restructuring the museum that would later be renamed Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. At that time, Goeldi began construction at the site where the museum stands today. Since it was a rural area far from downtown Belém—a region of vacation houses of the wealthy—many criticized the choice, claiming a lack of urbanization and infrastructure. Nonetheless, Goeldi soon began the works of the zoological garden and the botanical garden, structuring the enclosures and flowerbeds that would receive various species of plants and animals—both those donated to be cared for and rehabilitated, and those from the free-ranging fauna. Over time, the museum developed, incorporating neighboring lands and houses, until it formed the current 5.4-hectare quadrilateral, listed as a historic garden of great importance at both state and federal levels. This is why, for an exhibition to be installed in this ecosystem, extensive dialogue is required—not only with the architecture of the buildings, but also with the trees and animals that live there. When discussions about bringing artworks to the park began, the challenge of respecting the free-ranging fauna and the living structure of the place quickly became evident. Agoutis, pacas, armadillos, anteaters, sloths, and monkeys, among others, inhabit and move freely through the area, so any installation had to consider the ways in which they move and interact with the space. It would not be possible, for example, to tie something between trees, as this could become a dangerous passage for sloths or a risky toy for monkeys. Nor was it advisable to place works in the Victoria amazonica water lily tank, since its roots are extremely delicate. Each area of the park has its own particularities—such as the centenary Samaúma tree, the mid-sized trees, the lawns—that required constant adaptation and negotiation. Many proposals had to be revised so as not to damage the vegetation or interrupt the enjoyment of the natural environment. Even details such as the smell of vultures, the falling of leaves, and the flowering season had to be considered, as they would influence both the experience and the safety of visitors. Over time, the perspective on the exhibition was collectively refined, and the sense of how art and nature could enter into dialogue, without one overwhelming the other, began to take shape. From the start, everyone knew that some rules were firm, as a result of prior agreements, but many others would only take form in the making, in direct contact with the park and its changes. Sometimes, it was enough to move a work a few meters, lower it a little more, or change its orientation; other times, it was the season itself that dictated the adjustments. One of the works, for example, was intended to use the fibers of the Samaúma tree but since its flowering would only occur months after the exhibition's opening , the proposal had to adapt. It is the time of the tree that teaches the time of the artwork. At this writing moment, the oldest Samaúma, at 129 years, is shedding its leaves and will soon fill the air with fibers that float like parachutes, carried far away by the wind. Each species there has its own way of spreading—some with the help of agoutis, others on the blowing of the wind, and still others by the hands of the museum’s workers, who produce seedlings and replant them. Even medicinal plants are safeguarded by the team, protected from the public’s curious touch, because preserving is also part of the botanical garden’s mission—just like keeping alive species that, outside these grounds, almost no one recognizes anymore. Another challenge of creating an exhibition in a place like Museu Goeldi is to embrace what is current and contemporary without forgetting the importance of historical elements. How do the new works, made in the present moment, dialogue with the heritage of the complex, composed of historic buildings and their styles, their walls, and the sloping lines of their roofs? Pedro Pompei Filizzola Oliva, head of the Zoobotanical Park Service, has worked at the museum for nearly forty years. He says that, when he first started working at the institution, it was common to hear suggestions to cover the original floor of Rocinha building, as people thought it drew too much attention and that the focus should be on the exhibited pieces. However, he recognizes the value of a 19th-century building still retaining the characteristics of its era, and he believes that this history must be shown, not hidden. Any museum that hosts an exhibition must be seen as a home that shelters not only its collections but also the people who work and visit. Museums are places of living. In this sense, the exhibition A River Does Not Exist Alone is an experiment in how the space of a museum, no matter which one, may be understood as a place of life. In the end, everything comes down to this coexistence, where art does not impose itself upon the place, but learns from it. In an exhibition such as this, in a place like the Museu Goeldi, every decision must be the result of listening and negotiation—with the trees, with the animals, with the climate, and with the unique time of each being. This is not an exhibition that resists despite the life around it; it is the life around it that welcomes the exhibition by shaping it, transforming it, and often becoming part of it. It is an exercise in mutual respect, where one arrives not to control, but to share the space and allow it to build its own part of the work. Instituto Tomie Ohtake and Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi
Curatorial text – Sabrina Fontenele
A living exhibition within the Park Being in the Zoobotanical Park of Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi is an experience that goes far beyond a simple visit to a green area in an urban zone of Belém (Pará). The place presents itself as a pulsating universe, a space of enchantment, woven from an infinite diversity of colors, lights, scents, sounds, and pathways. This ecosystem, where human and non-human unfold in a negotiated and complex coexistence, was not merely chosen as the setting for this exhibition: it is its starting point, its conceptual substance, and its primary source of inspiration. The exhibition is born from this place and for this place. However, this celebration of life is not an invitation to escapism but rather a powerful and urgent reminder of what is at stake. This carefully preserved island of biodiversity exists on a planet in collapse: the year 2024, for example, will be remembered for the devastating floods in the southern of Brazil, the wildfires that consumed entire biomes, and the historic droughts in the Amazon. These extreme events are not isolated or temporary phenomena but the visible face of a climate crisis that has become our everyday reality, impacting all forms of life on the planet. It was within this urgent scenery that the project A River Does Not Exist Alone began to take shape, together with Vânia Leal—guest curator deeply familiar with the practices and knowledges of North Brazil—through an ongoing dialogue between Instituto Tomie Ohtake and the teams at Museu Goeldi. This project has been, since the first of its three stages, conceived as a collective construction. Initially, Vânia and I conducted research trips throughout Pará, meeting with masters of traditional knowledge, artists, activists, and institutions that engage with, produce from, and envision the world through logics that are more environmentally, socially, and culturally responsible. Some of these interlocutors are featured in this exhibition; many others were present in the early stages of the project, dialoguing through seminars held in São Paulo and Belém that brought together climate researchers, journalists, environmentalists, and artists from different regions of Brazil. These encounters among diverse disciplinary fields and territories have stimulated rich confluences—to use the word of the wise Nego Bispo, whose thinking has strongly resonated in our decisions. In the second stage, we organized the events Dialogues São Paulo and Dialogues Belém—held in August and November 2024—with the aim of creating a platform for the convergence of experiences, perspectives, and initiatives that was fundamental to the third stage: the organization of this exhibition. The diverse propositions of artists, knowledge holders, intellectuals, and others involved in this project reinforce the idea that the need to “imagine other forms of human existence is precisely the challenge that the climate crisis imposes on us: for if there is one thing that global warming has made perfectly clear, it is that: thinking of the world only as it is, amounts to collective suicide.” This thought, from Indian writer Amitav Ghosh, suggests that we must imagine what the world can become. Through the convergence of traditional knowledges, academic researches, and artistic experimentations, this exhibition encourages a critical view of the excessive exploitation of natural resources and opens up possibilities for sustainable ways of living. At this phase of the project, we invited artists from different regions of Brazil to share their reflections and proposals, grounded in an understanding of the environment as a source of knowledge. Based on their own poetics, the artists responded to the space, and the dynamics present there, and this collaborative and sensitive approach was fundamental for them to conceive their works from natural resources aligned with a logic of sustainability, using miriti palm, straw, clay, among others, in a straightforward dialogue with the Park. Each choice related to heights, occupied areas, shadows, and the origin and disposal of materials was made with the aim of having minimal impact on the Park, denaturalizing traditional construction logic. With the sensitivity to understand the dynamics of this ecosystem, artists have researched, planned, and explored the possibilities of bringing their reflections to this space, taking great care with the impact of each intervention on the delicate balance of the Park, both for the visiting public and for its human and non-human inhabitants. In this way, the artworks integrate respectfully into the landscape, promoting an experience on this place without ever disturbing its rhythms and inhabitants. The works presented here are not static objects; they are living proposals, designed to interact and change over the months through active coexistence with the beings that inhabit and visit the place. Thus, the Park's centenary pathways, at every step, invite us to sharpen our senses and attend to the movements, sounds, smells, lights, and colors. Faced with a history marked by degradation and exhaustive exploitation of natural resources, the exhibition presents alternatives to the lack of imagination through which we may deal with this crisis and offers ways to postpone the end of the world, as suggested by Ailton Krenak. A River Does Not Exist Alone reinforces that, in addition to essential public policies, we need to invest in narratives that involve climate justice and resilience. It is the potency of what we imagine and the hope of what we construct collectively that will allow us to invent more generous and sustainable ways of inhabiting our planet. Sabrina Fontenele Curator, Instituto Tomie Ohtake
Curatorial text – Vânia Leal
River Body The 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) encouraged Instituto Tomie Ohtake to begin, in 2024, a project committed to the flows and resistances that shape life in the Amazon, and to expand into global climate issues.. Within this dialogical process with the Institute’s team, A River Does Not Exist Alone emerged—not merely as an exhibition, but as an act of reaffirming the symbolic, political, and existential role of rivers as living, collective, and interconnected entities. In Belém (Pará), a city that serves as a gateway to the forest and Amazonian waters, the exhibition unfolds at the Zoobotanical Park of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Within this space, the sounds, rhythms, and knowledges of the vibrant forest intertwine with the presence of Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, artists, architects, scientists, activists, and engaged thinkers. The result is a rich ecology of ideas, practices, and affections that reject the logic of extractivism and underscore the urgency of preserving the standing forest—not as mere scenery, but as an active, pulsating political subject. The standing forest is the result of the active and ancestral protection of the peoples who inhabit this territory. They are the true guardians of biodiversity and waters, resisting violent exploitation for centuries and sustaining—through their bodies, languages, and ways of life—the delicate balance between nature and humanity. To honor this resistance is to recognize the urgency of climate justice. From this perspective, the exhibition proposes encounters, installations, urban interventions, and educational actions that transform how we think about the Amazon and its struggles. It is not only a matter of speaking about the forest, but of entering into dialogue with it: like those who navigate alongside, attentive to the wisdom of the waters and to the enchanted presences that dwell within them. Taking hydrosolidarity as inspiration, the project borrows from this concept an ethic of collective responsibility around water—understood as a common good and a condition of life that defines interdependence between humans and non-humans—calling for practices of care and reciprocity within water cycles. Grounded in this ethic, A River Does Not Exist Alone unfolds as an expanded space for reflection on climate, ecological, and social urgencies. It draws upon Indigenous thought and ancestral knowledge, recognizing that life, like a river, is a network of interconnected relations: there is no current without banks, no river course without being nourished by others. Thus, as the very title of this project declares, we affirm: a river does not flow alone, but carries stories, empties into memories, and sustains worlds. In times of climate collapse and growing threats to forest peoples, this initiative beckons toward the building of alliances: interspecies, with forest communities, and with human beings. Our starting point is the belief that art may be boat, oar, and riverbank, and that the future, like rivers, is constructed collectively, with deep roots in ancestral knowledge. Ecological responsibility grants art the force of care, of a gesture of restitution, and of an action linked to the Amazon biome. As a curator born on the banks of the Amazon and spiritually connected to the collective, I am a river body flowing and tracing paths. Since January 2024, together with curator Sabrina Fontenele, I have been navigating waters, visiting communities, talking to artists, and strengthening our partnership with the Museu Goeldi team. We are here not at an endpoint, but at the beginning of a critical and ethical journey—one nourished by voices and practices that recognize Amazonian land, water, body, and time as spaces of struggle and reinvention. In this active journey, I wish to foreground the collaborative work with artists and with the Museu Goeldi team—guardians who know every species of fauna and flora in the Zoobotanical Park, and who understand precisely the limits that ensure no existence is violated. Among many other forms of knowledge, in shaping each artist’s proposal in ways that respect non-human beings—without harming trees or altering the space—we experienced ourselves as living parts of Amazonian nature. The museum, like the forest peoples, is inseparable from this nature. Through this project, Instituto Tomie Ohtake affirms itself as a network of art, alliances, and encounters that emerge at the intersection of forest, culture, and global decision-making. It is, undoubtedly, a bridge that connects worlds: between the visible and the invisible, the human and the more-than-human, the present and ancestry. Our wish is to foster dialogues and strengthen commitments to the whole environment. Vânia Leal Curator
Institutional – Instituto Tomie Ohtake
The Instituto Tomie Ohtake, located in São Paulo, will celebrate its 25 years of existence in 2026. Over this trajectory, which for years has extended into other territories, the exhibition 'A River Does Not Exist Alone' represents an important milestone in reflecting on our collective future. Founded by a family from the Asian diaspora, the Instituto shaped its institutional identity from the outset through openness to others and to the new. It has fostered vital connections between territories and different forms of social organization, life, and culture, becoming a space for encounters and for presenting diverse landscapes and cultures, with a keen eye on the arts and their intersections with education, design, architecture, and knowledge systems—far beyond Western frameworks... Over these more than two decades of work, the crises that affect us—climatic, political, social, and existential—have made even more explicit our need to coexist with differences and create alliances for a fairer and more sustainable world. In this sense, the role of art and poetic practices is fundamental, offering unique and indispensable spaces to perceive, feel, and translate the complexities of our world, while imagining other ways to build and inhabit it. 'A River Does Not Exist Alone' condenses and celebrates much of this trajectory and of our understanding of the role of a cultural institution today, both in Brazil and globally. Nothing exists alone—neither rivers, nor people, nor social organizations, nor countries—and we are all part of this circle of life. Working together is the first step to contributing, in some way, to ensuring that the many worlds endure and coexist, beginning with the privilege of engaging and learning from the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, which for over a century has conceived the Amazon as a universe. For us, the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) is an opportunity to give visibility to artists, knowledges, and creations connected to ecological thinking, expanding our repertoire regarding life on Earth. However, it is important to note that the conference itself is not our primary focus: our purpose is art, life, and the sharing of the world. The Instituto Tomie Ohtake is grateful to the Ministry of Culture, which, through the Federal Cultural Incentive Law (Lei Rouanet), has made the exhibition 'A River Does Not Exist Alone' possible, and the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, whose support was fundamental for the realization of this project. We also extend our gratitude to our sponsors: Nubank, the institutional supporter of the Instituto Tomie Ohtake; AkzoNobel, gold sponsor; Aché Laboratórios FarmacêuticosCultural, silver sponsor; and PepsiCo, bronze sponsor. Instituto Tomie Ohtake
Institutional – Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi
Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, a leading institution in research and dissemination of knowledge about the Amazon, recognizes that understanding and communicating the complexity of this region requires multiple perspectives. It is in this context that the convergence of science and art becomes essential. Science offers us rigorous methods to investigate, document, and preserve the Amazonian biodiversity and cultures. Art, in turn, with its sensitive and symbolic potency, expands forms of perception, awakens emotions, and creates possibilities for dialogue with different audiences. When united, science and art transform data into narratives, discoveries into experiences, and knowledge into meaningful encounters. The connection between science and art is, therefore, a strategy to broaden access to knowledge, strengthen critical awareness, and cultivate emotional bonds with the natural and cultural heritage that Museu Goeldi is dedicated to safeguarding. It is also an invitation to imagination and reflection, acknowledging that understanding the Amazon is an exercise that demands both scientific precision and poetic openness. It is at this confluence of interests that 'A River Does Not Exist Alone' docks at the rivers of Museu Goeldi’s Zoobotanical Park—recognized nationally and internationally as the oldest territory of Amazonian heritage and scientific production in and for the Amazon. Created in 1895, the park shelters nearly 3,000 trees of large, medium, and small size; shrubs and vines; and around one hundred animal species. More than a green refuge within the city, the park is an open-air laboratory, integrating scientific research, environmental conservation, education, and leisure. While walking through its 5.4 hectares, visitors may experience the Amazonian biodiversity and the history of an institution that has, for over 150 years, been dedicated to studying, preserving, and disseminating the region’s heritage. 'A River Does Not Exist Alone' has enabled Museu Goeldi and Instituto Tomie Ohtake to jointly broaden the debate on the global climate crisis, seeking to integrate science, art, architecture, design, and traditional knowledges into a critical and mobilizing platform. All of this in the heart of the largest metropolis of the Brazilian Amazon, Belém that shall host the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 30) this year, making the experience a plural opportunity to rethink our ways of life, our memories, and the way we relate to the world, inspired by the enchantment that knowledge and poetics may offer us. Let us be enchanted! Sue Costa and Pedro Pompei Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi
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