GWANGJU.- Four artists associated with Rio de Janeiro gallery A Gentil Carioca are participating in the 16th Gwangju Biennale as part of the first Brazilian Pavilion ever presented at the influential South Korean exhibition.

Marcela Cantuária, Mariana Rocha, Vinicius Gerheim and Vivian Caccuri are included in “Devorações do Amanhã – Brasil em Rebento” — translated as “Devourings of Tomorrow – Brazil Sprouting” — a group exhibition that looks at contemporary Brazil not as something fixed, but as a place continually being formed, challenged and reinvented.

Curated by Aldones Nino and Bruna Levi, the project brings together artists from different generations and takes the ideas of “devouring” and “sprouting” as starting points for thinking about transformation, continuity and creation.

The language of devouring carries particular resonance within Brazilian culture, where ideas of cultural absorption and reinvention have long shaped discussions around national identity and artistic production. In the Gwangju presentation, that notion is placed alongside the image of a sprout — something emerging, growing and opening the possibility of a different future.

Rather than proposing a single portrait of Brazil, the pavilion brings together different artistic languages, experiences and forms of knowledge. The result is intended to reflect a country whose identity is continually under construction.





Among the works on view is Vinicius Gerheim’s “Mill” (2026), which grew out of his participation in Tropismo, a residency program developed as part of the Brazilian Pavilion. The initiative brings artists and researchers together to investigate different ways of thinking about contemporary Brazil.

Gerheim is joined by Marcela Cantuária, Mariana Rocha and Vivian Caccuri, extending the pavilion’s examination of Brazilian artistic practice across different approaches and generations.

Their participation also places the Brazilian Pavilion within the wider framework of this year’s Gwangju Biennale, titled “You Must Change Your Life.” Under the artistic direction of Ho Tzu Nyen, the 16th edition takes transformation as a continuing process rather than a single dramatic event, bringing artists from different cultural and geographic contexts into conversation around the ways individuals and societies change.

Founded in 1995, the Gwangju Biennale has become Asia’s longest-running contemporary art biennial and one of the major international platforms for contemporary art.

The 16th Gwangju Biennale runs from September 5 through November 15, 2026, in Gwangju, South Korea.