Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Inhotim- Belo Horizonte Side Trip

We woke up about 7:30 to get an early start on the day and shower. Around the corner from the hostel I found a delicious and inexpensive cafe with warm and gushy pao de queijo. We met up with Pedro and two of his friends, Mariana and Batata (yes, his nickname is Potato), to explore Inhotim. 
We rented a car to drive to Brumadinho for the art botanical garden. Inhotim is famous for being one of the largest outdoor art gardens in South America. It was an hour and a half drive and the last 30 minutes was all dirt roads, but that was because we took a back way in that was filled with truckers. 
Brumadinho recently had a devastating flood and landslide caused by one of the dam’s infrastructure giving way, and the state of Minas has a lot of dams because of the mining industry. It was interesting to be in the city that I had seen on the news so much last year. 
We got to the park and there was plenty of parking. I got a half price ticket with my student ID from university (44R normal and 22R half price). Every website states that it takes a minimum of 2 days to see all of the exhibits throughout the park, and I underestimated that statement! We stayed for 5 hours and only saw half of the exhibits, which was about 9-12 of them. It was a beautiful mixture of photographs, videos, sculptures. 
One of my favorites was the building filled with photographs of a Brasilian indigenous tribe, and highlighted some traditions and customs. I also loved a room filled with about 30 speakers in a circle and they all had individually recorded choir members singing one of the most noted difficult songs to date. There was also cosmococa (similar to that spelling), which had all interactive rooms with hammocks, beds, mats and soft plush shapes, and balloons. 
Most exhibits were housed in a building, but some sculptures also dotted the park outside. We walked around some lakes and through forest paths for the exhibit buildings, and there was less of a focus on the plants than I imagined. About ¾ of the day through we found one of the pieces I had seen online and I had been searching for the kaleidoscope. It put an amazing spin on looking at nature. We drove home on the main road and all went out for hamburgers together. Afterwards, Maddy had to get to the bus station, so we went back to the hostel and I called it a night.











This one was really hard to appreciate without reading the sign, but it had the sound of drilling under the water. It was intriguing, but not my favorite. It did have a beautiful panoramic view. 

The view from the exihibit


By far one of my favorite exhibitions- it had all photography of indigenous tribes of Brasil



This was interesting because you could walk around and through the artwork, and the floor was covered in big glass shards. There were several layers of fences comprised of fish tanks, barbed wire fences, gates, and wires 

We needed to take our shoes off to enter, but in the conjoining room it was completely dark, except for the dimly lit sink that had a stream of red water running from it constantly


I adored the kaleidoscope and the distorted view of the landscape 

There was a whole exhibit of sculptures based on Brasilian bus stops 

The floating tree was actually made of metal, but it was very deceiving 

Titled something like: the fallen beams, it was crazy to imagine installing the work 



I loved the bridges and varied landscapes throughout the park 



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