Cumbica, by Tuca Vieira
 
On the third floor of Casa do Povo, the Cumbica exhibition displays six panoramic photographs taken by Tuca Vieira during an expedition that circled the border between Guarulhos Airport and the surrounding neighborhoods. The route of more than 20 kilometers was covered on April 12, 2017, by bicycle, at the invitation of the editors of the Contracondutas project.

The six panoramic photographs presented here absorb us and immerse us in the unknown, anonymous, inhospitable and discontinuous spaces of the boundaries between this major infrastructure project, built in the 1980s, and its immediate surroundings. The impact of the airport on its edges is revealed by a succession of fences, walls, alleys, parking garages and large open areas, which lead us to deduce the existence of a runway. In some of these photos, the contrast between the walled boundaries and the territorialization of the populations involved in the urbanization process of that region, previously occupied by a large farm on marshy land, is evident. The work is part of the program of the 11th São Paulo Architecture Biennial and proposes a reflection on the unknown, anonymous, inhospitable and discontinuous spaces of the boundaries between this major infrastructure project, built in the 1980s, and its immediate surroundings.
 
Cumbica is Tuca Vieira's first work after the celebrated Photographic Atlas of the City of São Paulo and Surrounding Areas , exhibited at Casa da Imagem in 2016. Now, the artist uses the 35mm panoramic format, without the rigidity of the large format used previously, but continuing the research he has been carrying out on the relationship between mapping, territory, architecture and photography.
 
According to urban planner Kazuo Nakano, who was invited to write about the work, “in the desert surrounding the airport, the spaces and things shown in Tuca Vieira’s photographs seem to be incomplete and unfinished and, for this very reason, on the verge of becoming smooth and being occupied by diabolical powers.”
 
The photographs, mounted in large format, occupy three semi-abandoned rooms in the Casa da Povo, normally restricted to the public. The project to occupy this unstable space, carried out by Helena Cavalheiro, establishes an architectural dialogue between the content of the photographs, the state of ruin of the rooms and the city itself that unfolds around them.