Português
On July 31, Pivô presents another edition of Circuito Lina, marking its fifth visit to Ladeira da Misericórdia. Bringing together artists Virgínia de Medeiros and Lanussi Pasquali, the walk will explore artistic activations that have shaped the recent history of the Ladeira and its surrounding area. The conversation will be moderated by Dilton de Almeida, professor and researcher at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA).
This edition focuses on artistic activations as practices that challenge the relationships between artwork, territory, and lived experience, temporarily reconfiguring the uses and meanings of urban space. Drawing on artists’ presence in the history of the Ladeira’s occupation, the walk brings into dialogue experiences that, at different moments, activated the site as a space for aesthetic and political experimentation.
In 2007, Virgínia de Medeiros participated in Pirambeira! Manifesta Multimídia, one of the first recent artistic activations in the area, presenting A Guardiã da Fonte (The Guardian of the Spring) at Fonte da Misericórdia itself. Developed in close collaboration with the community of Ladeira da Montanha, the work forms part of the artist’s broader research into territory, identity, and representation.
In 2016, Lanussi Pasquali, together with Joãozito, conceived Ocupação Coaty, held within the architectural complex designed by Lina Bo Bardi and João Filgueiras Lima. The initiative brought together a diverse network of artists, researchers, architects, and local residents, reactivating the site through workshops, exhibitions, performances, and public discussions, and reestablishing Ladeira da Misericórdia as a key site for contemporary artistic practice in Salvador.
Building on these experiences, the walk proposes thinking of Ladeira da Misericórdia as a territory of symbolic contestation, where artistic practice can operate as a form of reactivation. Beyond occupying space, it also generates connections, narratives, and forms of belonging. The memory of these activations spans the years, remaining inscribed between ruin and project, emptiness and invention. By bringing together artists who have worked directly within this context, the walk reactivates this field of forces while opening new possibilities for presence and action in the territory.
Circuito Lina, a program of walks through Ladeira da Misericórdia from different perspectives and lived experiences, is part of the activation process of Pivô Coaty and of Centro-Vivo: Archive and Research Laboratory of Ladeira da Misericórdia. The project is an initiative of Pivô in partnership with the City of Salvador, with institutional support from the Faculty of Architecture at the Federal University of Bahia (FAUFBA).
Each walk is led by different invited guests, who share their research, experiences, and interpretations of the territory through the lenses of architecture, urban history, cultural practices, memory, and the relationships built with Ladeira da Misericórdia.
Visual artist, curator, educator, and cultural producer. She holds a degree in Visual Arts from Centro Universitário Feevale (1999) and a master’s in Visual Arts from the Federal University of Bahia (2005). In 2010, she coordinated the Art and Education Division of the Museum Directorate of the State of Bahia (DIMUS). She is the creator of the Ativa Project, a platform for activating networks for/from experimental contemporary art and its developments: Perto de lá <> Close to There, co-directed with Jordan Martins (USA), an international exchange project with editions held in 2015, 2019, and 2020 in Salvador and Chicago, involving artists of various nationalities. Riso Ativa (2017), a risograph printing studio for independent publications. Ativa Atelier Livre (2019), a space dedicated to making and reflecting on contemporary art for artists and non-artists. A Galeria (2022), an exhibition space integrated with the studio.
In 2018, she participated in an artistic residency at L’Asilo Occupation in Naples, Italy, and in 2020, in the virtual residency F(r)ictions – Cartographies in Times of Virtual Crisis.
A visual artist and researcher, she holds an MA in Visual Arts from EBA-UFBA and is currently a PhD candidate in the Graduate Program in Communication and Semiotics at PUC-SP. Her practice unfolds within contemporary visual arts through video, installation, photography, and collaborative processes, investigating the image as a site of encounter. Through fabulation as a relational practice, her work is grounded in listening, connection, and the production of alterity.
She has participated in the 27th and 31st São Paulo Biennials. In 2015, she received the PIPA Prize (both popular vote and jury) and the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize, and was awarded at the 18th International Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil. In 2020, she was a commissioned artist at the 11th Berlin Biennale.
Recent exhibitions include O Brasil São Muitos (Galeria Municipal Torreão Nascente da Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon, 2025); Histories of Ecology (MASP, São Paulo, 2025); Construction, Occupation: Re-enacting the City (Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, 2025); Ainda Não é o Fim do Mundo (Paço das Artes, São Paulo, 2025); Baile Circular (MUNTREF, Buenos Aires, 2024); Ana Mendieta: Silhueta em Fogo / Terra Abrecaminhos (Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo, 2023); Negros na Piscina (Pinacoteca do Ceará, Fortaleza, 2023); the 11th Berlin Biennale (2020); Liebe und Ethnologie (HKW, Berlin, 2019); Feminist Histories (MASP, São Paulo, 2019); Histories of Sexuality (MASP, São Paulo, 2017–2018); La réplica infiel (CA2M, Madrid, 2016); and Rainbow in the Dark (Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, 2015).
Her works are part of collections including Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Bahia (MAC-BA), Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM-RJ), Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR), Associação Cultural Videobrasil, Coleção de Arte da Cidade (Centro Cultural São Paulo), Centro Cultural Banco do Nordeste, Centro Dragão do Mar de Arte e Cultura, and Instituto PIPA.
Dilton de Almeida is a professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), working in the fields of theory, history, architectural design, and urban planning. His research focuses on the history of urbanism and urban transformations, articulating architecture and the city with historiography, aesthetics, art, and literature, with an emphasis on image and memory.
He co-coordinates Laboratório Urbano and the research network Cronologia do Pensamento Urbanístico. He is the editor of Laboratório Urbano: pequeno léxico teórico-metodológico (EDUFBA, 2022), the collection Cidade, Urbanismo, História (EDUFBA, 2023), and Nebulosas do Pensamento Urbanístico: modos de expor (EDUFBA, 2025).
He also organized the exhibition Debaixo desse céu: nebulosas da cidade, presented at the Centro Universitário Maria Antônia of the University of São Paulo (USP) in 2024 and later restaged at UFBA in 2025.