COLONIAL OASIS
Solo exhibition. Kubik Gallery. São Paulo. Brazil.2021.
The concept of “oasis civilization” is introduced by Mario Pedrosa supporting Brasília as the outlook of an alleged lack of history, in which the instant creation of a social structure would skip stages of development and an organic cultural formulation, comprehending the modern city as both compensation and deletion of the new world’s historical gaps.
The oasis would then emerge as the vision of an idea of prosperity derived from an artificially produced modernity, to overcome the supposed demographic, cultural, and historical void in the inner parts of Brazil. This rosy view also takes into account the phenomenon of collective appropriation of modern architectural signs, from which its several meanings it is possible to mention the cult of the idea of prosperity and development.
In contrast, the oasis refers to the mirage and the colonial delirium similar to those of the first invasions in the interior of Portuguese America that glimpsed finding the great Eupana lagoon in the middle of the continental “void”, mythically widespread as the source of gold. This way, the colonial stigma of the oasis (a space that can provide, in the middle of an archaic hinterland) is the background on which the imagery of modernity establishes itself, resonating to these days in the contradictory fabrications of Brazil.