By
Álvaro De Benito
GÊ VIANA IN VIENNA: AFRO-BRAZILIAN MEMORY, SOUND, AND THE ARCHIVE
The Brazilian artist’s exhibition at the newly inaugurated MEZEKƎRƎ explores Afro-Pindoramic forms of knowledge and traditions through documentation, sound, and radiolas, creating spaces for encounter and the preservation of collective identity.
October 02, 2026
Radiola Making. Photo by Marisel Bongola
Anunciação das Ardências is an exhibition by Gê Viana (Centro do Dete, Brazil, 1986) that officially inaugurates the Vienna-based MEZEKƎRƎ and marks the Brazilian artist’s first solo exhibition in Europe. The exhibition comprises eleven collages, a sculpture, a raffia installation, and a new sound altar inspired by the reggae culture of Maranhão, presenting a representative body of work shaped by knowledge, memory, and Afro-Brazilian influences.
The exhibition is the outcome of the artist’s residency at MEZEKƎRƎ during the spring of this year. It extends her ongoing research into sound, the archive, and the living documentation of territory, bringing together diverse forms of knowledge and experience. Through collages constructed from public archives, objects, materials, and sound devices, Gê Viana seeks to transform the exhibition space into an environment in which memory is activated as a collective, ritual, and contemporary process.
In this way, the artist’s arrangement of the works transforms the exhibition space into a site of archiving and encounter, where spirituality is understood as a practice of listening, connection, and resistance rather than as something detached from everyday life. Although the exhibition employs different techniques and media, its central axis is the radiola: a sound-system culture that has shaped the distinctive melô culture of the artist’s home state for decades and has become one of its principal symbols.
In Viana’s work, the radiola functions as a sonic body, but also as a site of encounter and an instrument for strengthening collective memory. This approach extends the visual and conceptual language already present in A Colheita de Dan, the monumental installation with which Gê Viana made a significant contribution to the 2025 São Paulo Biennial. In Vienna, through the new sound altar and the surrounding works, the artist foregrounds the continuity of musical and ritual practices as tools for preserving identity and reaffirming community.
Gê Viana: Anunciação das Ardências is on view until 28 February 2027 at MEZEKƎRƎ, Apollogasse 21/5, Vienna, Austria.
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