C&AL’s Highlights of 2025 You Might Have Missed

The Forgotten Asian Histories of Latin America

Responding to historical erasure, contemporary Asian diasporic artists in Latin America and the Caribbean have developed intensive, research-based practices and complex, interdisciplinary works that interrogate history and memory.

Andrea Chung: Dematerialization to Subvert Commodification

An essay about the artist’s use of ephemerality in order to subvert commodification while developing an art practice as social justice.

The entanglement of Migration, Indigenous Peoples, and Colonialism

Through humor and materiality, Guatemalan artist Esvin Alarcón Lam challenges dominant narratives of mestizaje, shedding light on the endurance of bodies and stories that resist erasure. His work maps non-linear migrant trajectories and reveals intuitive connections between China, Central America, and the Caribbean.

What’s Behind Decolonial Movements in Brazil?

In the last decade, Brazil has witnessed decolonial movements that span all fields of social, political and cultural life. In this text, Will Furtado shares their observations after living in the country in 2023 and presents ideas that have contributed to these historic changes.

MASF: An Art Museum that Connects Territory and Communities

Transforming a public staircase into an open-air art museum, MASF is more than just a collection of artifacts. The museum is the realization of a collective dream of fostering important personalities engaged in the local art scene, combining cultural practices with knowledge, poetry and leisure, where resistance leads to urban preservation.

Irmandade Vilanismo: Bringing Poetry of the Periphery into the Bienal

Inspired by the writer Conceição Evaristo, the installation by the Brazilian collective Irmandade Vilanismo forges a symbolic pact for life. Made up of ten Black artists from peripheral neighborhoods, the group occupies the space transforming it into both a working studio and a manifesto for dignity, land, and against racist expectations.

Photos in order of appearance:

• Detail of Echar raíces en el aire (2022), Mimian Hsu. Courtesy of the artist.
• Pure, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.
• Esvin Alarcón Lam, Paisajes mentales de bambú (Bamboo Mental Landscapes), 2024. Photo: Hazel Kılınç & Deniz Karagül. Courtesy of the artist.
• Zumví Arquivo Afro Fotográfico, Rosário dos Pretos Sisterhood Demonstration at Pelourinho during the Celebrations of Bahia Independence, in the 2nd of July. Digital transfer film photography. Courtesy: Zumví Arquivo Afro Fotográfico, Salvador. Photo: Lázaro Roberto
• Exhibition As vozes da terra (2023-24). Photo: Diney Araújo
  Vilanismo, Black Procession, 2024. Photo: Rodrigo Zaim