Exhibitions
Where the river guides: Bubuia at the MAMM of Colombia
The exhibition Bubuia: Waters as a Source of Imaginations and Desires at the MAMM proposes a sensitive and political reading of the Amazon as a territory in constant transformation. Conceived as the first Amazon Biennial, the exhibition presents the works of 54 different artists and positions water not only as a natural resource, but as the organizer of memories, emotions, and ways of life. In a country like Brazil, where the Amazon biome occupies a central place in environmental and cultural debates, Bubuia shifts the focus toward a more intimate and relational understanding of the territory.
The curatorial project draws inspiration from the "dibubuismo" of the poet and thinker João de Jesus Paes Loureiro, for whom "estar de bubuia," translated as floating on water, implies a simultaneous disposition toward movement and stillness. Far from being a passive gesture, floating becomes a form of attentiveness, a way of allowing oneself to be traversed by the rhythm of the river, by its slow tempos and unpredictable currents. In this balance between surrender and resistance, an ethic of dwelling is configured.
Throughout the exhibition, the works are arranged like fragments of a fluid and living archive. Photographs, installations, performances, and oral narratives construct a memory that is not fixed in permanent documents, but rather circulates among bodies, territories, and stories. In this sense, the river functions as a system of cultural transmission, where collective experiences, inherited knowledge, and forms of everyday resistance are deposited. Many of the pieces presented work with images, records, and movement, proposing an experience marked by circulation.
The notion of a dual reality, as proposed by Paes Loureiro—one immediate and the other mediated—permeates the entire exhibition. The visitor moves between the material and the enchanted, between the concrete presence of the landscape and its imaginary dimension. Like observing a river, the gaze oscillates between the visible bottom and the moving surface, between what can be named and what remains open to interpretation.
From this perspective, Bubuia avoids representing the Amazon as a fixed or exotic territory. On the contrary, she presents it as a process in flux, where identities, languages, and emotions are constantly transforming. In this constant flow, one can almost intuitively read Deleuze's idea of becoming: existence not as a closed form, but as a shared movement between body, water, and memory.
In a context marked by the climate crisis and social tensions, the biennial champions desire as a collective force. It proposes spaces for encounter, recognition, and struggle, where plurality is not an abstract discourse, but a lived experience. Floating, in this sense, becomes a strategy for avoiding sinking into indifference.
More than an aesthetic immersion, Bubuia proposes a form of sensory knowledge. Amidst bubbles, currents, and narratives, the exhibition constructs a constantly evolving language: an open signal that invites us to listen, to move, and to rethink our relationship with the territories we inhabit.
