PortuguêsPivô Boulevard opens its doors next Friday (March 13), at 6 pm, for the Public Program “Territory, Mobility and Encounter,” an open conversation with Maria Marighella and Ayrson Heráclito, moderated by José Eduardo Ferreira Santos. The event is open to the public and will feature a culinary activation by Boteco Havre.
The dialogue begins from an experience situated in the territory: Marighella and Heráclito share the same surroundings as Pivô Boulevard, in the neighborhood of Nazaré. This geographical and everyday proximity serves as a starting point to reflect on how relationships built through coexistence, exchange, and shared experience within the neighborhood can extend beyond their immediate surroundings and activate connections with other urban, institutional, and cultural landscapes.
What begins as a relationship of proximity can become a platform for mobility and articulation between different contexts, expanding the very limits of the idea of neighborhood. Between the local, national, and international spheres, the conversation proposes to reflect on how local encounters and situated dialogues can connect with broader networks of circulation and cooperation, linked to wider cultural agendas.
Drawing from distinct trajectories—the institutional and political work within the cultural field in the case of Maria Marighella, and the artistic and curatorial practice of Ayrson Heráclito, consolidated across local, national, and international contexts—the conversation proposes to examine how encounters and forums for debate rooted in a specific territory can generate mobility and resonance across expanded circuits of the arts. The moderation by José Eduardo Ferreira Santos shifts and broadens the initial proximity, challenging the very idea of neighborhood by connecting the immediate surroundings of Pivô to other territorialities within the city.
The conversation approaches the idea that culture is built through encounters: encounters between artists and audiences, between institutions and territories, and between local experiences and broader circuits of cultural circulation. It is an invitation to reflect on the different scales of proximity in building platforms capable of circulating ideas, practices, and imaginaries—creating conditions for different contexts to connect, influence one another, and transform together.
Maria Marighella is from Bahia and serves as president of the National Foundation for the Arts (Funarte), an institution of Brazil’s Ministry of Culture. An actress, mother, feminist, cultural manager, and cultural activist, she served as a city councilor in Salvador and is the first woman from Brazil’s Northeast to lead the institution.
Ayrson Heráclito is an Ogã of Jeje Mahi, artist, professor, and curator. He holds a PhD in Communication and Semiotics from PUC-SP and an MA in Visual Arts from UFBA. His work highlights Afro-Brazilian roots and their sacred elements, projecting actions and practices that compose the history and culture of Black communities. In 2026, he participates in the 61st Venice Biennale.
His work spans installation, performance, photography, and audiovisual media, exploring connections between the African continent and Black diasporas in the Americas. The body plays a central role in his research, which mobilizes ritual references—especially from Candomblé—such as palm oil, meat, sugar, and blood, relating them to historical and architectural heritage associated with the transatlantic slave trade.
Between 2008 and 2011, he developed the series Bori, a term meaning “offering to the head.” The performance presents a ritual in which Heráclito offers foods associated with twelve orixás, including corn, popcorn, okra, rice, and fava beans, placed around the heads of performers lying on straw mats and dressed in white.
Another significant milestone in his career is Transmutação da Carne, initiated in 1994. The work emerged from a document describing the torture inflicted by plantation owners on enslaved people. In 2015, Heráclito re-presented the work during the exhibition Terra Comunal by Marina Abramović at Sesc Pompeia in São Paulo.
Among his key research projects is Sacudimentos, addressing the slave trade between Bahia and Senegal. Presented at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, the work consists of videos and photographs documenting cleansing rituals performed at the House of Slaves on Gorée Island and at a former sugar plantation in Brazil, confronting the ghosts of colonial history.
Heráclito has participated in the Bamako Photography Biennale (2015), the Luanda Triennial (2010), and the 57th Venice Biennale (2017). In 2022, he presented the solo exhibition Ayrson Heráclito: Yorùbáiano at Estação Pinacoteca in São Paulo. He was one of the chief curators of the 3rd Bahia Biennial and guest curator of the section “Routes and Transes: Africas, Jamaica and Bahia” in the project Afro-Atlantic Histories, presented at MASP and Instituto Tomie Ohtake in 2018.
He received the Dakar Artistic Residency Award from Sesc_Videobrasil in partnership with Raw Material Company, Senegal. In 2023, he presented the installation Floresta de Infinitos, in collaboration with Tiganá Santana, at the 35th São Paulo Biennial.
His works are part of collections including Museum der Weltkulturen (Frankfurt), MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, MASP, Museu Oscar Niemeyer (Curitiba), Videobrasil, the Art Institute of Chicago, Inhotim, Sesc São Paulo, and the José Olympio and Itaú collections.
A pedagogue (UCSal), master’s in Psychology (UFBA), and doctor in Public Health from the Federal University of Bahia, with a postdoctoral fellowship in Contemporary Culture (PACC – UFRJ) at the Institute of Psychology at UFBA and the Graduate Program in Family in Contemporary Society at UCSal, under the National Postdoctoral Program (PNPD – CAPES).
Curator and, along with Vilma Santos, responsible for the Acervo da Laje, which gathers artistic and historical works from the Subúrbio Ferroviário of Salvador and the entire city. He is the author of the books Novos Alagados: histórias do povo e do lugar (EDUSC, 2005), Travessias: a adolescência em Novos Alagados (EDUSC, 2005), Cuidado com o vão: repercussões do homicídio entre jovens da periferia (EDUFBA, 2010), Faixas assombrosas: a nascente da beleza nas canções populares (Scortecci, 2013), Nascente da beleza (Scortecci, 2013), and Acervo da Laje: memória estética e artística do Subúrbio Ferroviário de Salvador (Scortecci, 2014).
With Acervo da Laje, he participated in various exhibitions, including the 1ª exposição pública at Casa de Vera e Antonio Lazzarotto, Salvador (2011); Cadê a bonita? at Galeria Pierre Verger, Salvador (2012); As águas suburbanas no Acervo da Laje at Centro Cultural Plataforma, Salvador (2012); Memórias afetivas do Subúrbio Ferroviário de Salvador at Subúrbio 360, Salvador (2017); Indiano Carioca at Coaty, Salvador (2016); Os labirintos de Zaca Oliveira at Teatro Gamboa Nova, Salvador (2018); Adilson Baiano Paciência at Acervo da Laje, Salvador (2019); #Ocupalajes (2016 and 2018); A memória é uma invenção at MAM Rio, Rio de Janeiro (2022); Subúrbio: uma exposição em três atos at MAM Bahia, Salvador (2022); A parábola do progresso at Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo (2022); César Bahia: uma poética do recomeço at the Museum of Art of Rio (MAR), Rio de Janeiro (2023); Ensaios para o Museu das Origens at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo (2023); Dos Brasis at Sesc Belenzinho, São Paulo (2023); Brasil futuro: as formas da democracia at Solar Ferrão, Salvador (2023); and Memórias para Dona Antônia at Casa 2 of Acervo da Laje (November 2023). His paintings are signed artistically as Zé di Cabeça.
Photo: Ana Devora