maria noujaim

CASA AMERICANA (HOMMAGE TO CIUDAD ABIERTA) | 2019

Casa americana (hommage to ciudad abierta) is an installation and performance realized by commission of Duto, a project that promotes dialogues between architecture and other disciplines. I recovered my experience visiting Ciudad Abierta, a pedagogical and architectural project based in Ritoque, Chile. At the time of my visit, I came to know that the houses of the project were built in a process involving the reading and writing of poetry — as if the architecture of a poem was transformed into real habitations and spaces. Ciudad Abierta is also called Amereida, a neologism joining America and Virgil’s Aeneid. In this performance I have collected wood from São Paulo’s garbages and worked with an interpreter on the reading of one of Ciudad Abierta’s poems. During 60’ minutes the two interpreters built a symbolic house with gestures arisen from the poem and the collected woods. This image was taken in the group show Deslocal, at Olhão Space (São Paulo, BR), 2019.