[K] Cecilia Alemani (curator of the 59th Biennale) visited the latest edition of the Bienal de São Paulo last year. Did you have a chance to talk? And, given the context of the pandemic, how relevant to the local art scene was her presence at the event?
[JCV] Yes, I was with Cecília and Massimiliano Gioni, who is her husband and also a curator. We had a good conversation. In fact, we had several. From which, indeed, things emerged for the Venice Biennale. And yes, I think it is relevant that international curators visit the Bienal in Brazil. But I also think it's important to remember that the Bienal de São Paulo and its 34th edition, perhaps more than others, is an event made specifically for the local audience. That's why we thought of expanding the project in time and space. From the beginning, we wanted it to be an exhibition conceived and made for the local public, in São Paulo and Brazil (even before all the changes that the pandemic brought and that, in a way, amplified this vision).

[K] The Venice Biennale was postponed for a year due to the pandemic. Now, the event will open in the midst of the war that Russia has imposed on Ukraine. The artists and the curator of the Russian pavilion canceled their participation in protest against the war. In what ways can the social context and the proximity to the war influence the reception of the projects presented in the pavilions? And how do you see the Russian team's decision to withdraw from the event?
[JCV] As I said before, we are at a historic moment in which representing a country is a very complex task. In this sense, I think the decision of the Russian curator and artist to withdraw from the event is quite understandable. Brazil is also experiencing moments of tension and rupture of the social fabric. But still, everything happens within the legality of an institutionality that allows for discordant voices and different ways of seeing the country and the world. So, the context in which this Bienal takes place, both in Brazil and as in other places (and we think, obviously, of Ukraine first), makes the issues that are presented in the exhibition as a whole and in the Brazilian pavilion, which I can speak more specifically, reverberate even more strongly than they would at other times. I don't know what project was being made for the Russian pavilion, and I don't know, in detail, about the general exhibition of Cecília Alemani. But without a doubt, the Brazilian pavilion, in particular, was designed from the context of Brazil in recent years. So, it reflects in a very direct and, at the same time, very open and poetic way, this feeling in our bodies, which we physically feel on a daily basis by living in this context. Therefore, it is an installation very connected to the daily life we ​​are living, although none of the works speak of it in a literal way.