LOBBY 2

The artistic trajectory of Maria Thereza Alves (1961, Brazil) is inseparable from her political activism, whether it be in favour of ecology, the rights of indigenous minorities or territorial and decolonising struggles.

Maria Thereza Alves does not favour any particular medium, although her work often takes the form of prolific installations mixing natural and manufactured objects, videos, texts, drawings and photographs. These installations, like real investigations, reconstruct the artist's explorations and actions on a given territory. In the same way, her field of research and commitment is free of geographical boundaries, whether she invests in the urban environment (New York, Manchester) or natural spaces. The circulation of beings, whether human or plants, allows Alves to draw up a paradoxical history of globalisation, between uprooting, abandonment and resistance.

The work SALSOLA KALI & AMARANTHUS ALBUS (BRISTOL) is a reference to Bristol’s past as a key port in the Atlantic triangular trade route, which involved goods from England being shipped to Africa in exchange for enslaved Africans, who in turn would be traded in the Americas for other goods. Seeds from these places have arrived in Bristol and have been unloaded in the ballast dumps at the Wapping Quay where the Industrial Museum now is.