Luana Vitra: Cálculo para beijar o magma: Curatorial Text: Ariana Nuala

The limit of the star and the blood meet here as cycles of infinity, collapse, and regeneration that permeate her practice. Luana tells me of another discovery: some birds have magnetite in their beaks — iron in its magnetic form, present as a stone endowed with magnetism — in addition to specialized cells in their eyes capable of detecting the Earth’s magnetic field. It is precisely this characteristic that allows them to orient themselves by the invisible flows of the Earth itself. This detail inscribes itself into her research as yet another link between body, mineral, and invisible orientation. In her artistic practice, Luana Vitra affirms materiality as a vital and active force. Iron, ceramics, copper, stones, fabrics, and feathers appear as elements in her works and unfold as cosmic bodies, agents that establish their own rhythms and movements. The materials do not add up as an inventory, but rather are placed in tension within fields of force.

Iron carries the density of stellar collapse and of its presence in the blood, a weight that anchors the body to the Earth. Ceramics, which take form only after passing through fire, reveal the transformation of clay into a receptive form and, in Luana’s work, into a vessel of dynamic forces. Copper, a conductive metal, opens invisible channels of circulation. Stones — lapis lazuli, iron ore, and magnetites — condense the deep time of geology, embodied silence that resists domestication. Fabrics function as porous membranes, skin that breathes and mediates contact. And feathers, which have become part of her most recent works, in counterpoint to the gravity of the mineral, bring forth the figure of the bird as an agent attuned to the ethereal atmosphere, a space that also surrounds the minerals.

By working with iron and other minerals, Vitra also summons the history of extraction and expropriation that marks her place of origin. Minas Gerais, whose economy has been shaped by mining since the colonial period, remains today one of the most intensely exploited centers on the planet. In this context, the artist’s gesture is not neutral: her sculptures and installations restore symbolic density to the ore, which shifts from commodity to living, vibrant, relational body. I ask Luana whether her works take shape in space like a magnetic field, in which each form relates through forces of attraction and repulsion. She speaks to me, however, of the possibility of another path: one that arises from the pulverization of iron, a basis that runs through her research, and from the necessity of making it circulate in different places, reaffirming its presence.

At this point, I turn to the term entanglement, from quantum physics, described by Einstein as “spooky action at a distance”: when two particles are entangled, their states remain connected, regardless of the distance that separates them. This condition destabilizes the Cartesian logic of separation and suggests that reality is not made of isolated units, but of intrinsic relations. This entanglement also reveals itself in the way the exhibition revisits earlier works, such as Céu é Sutura (2018), Até que alguma coisa me pense para dentro (2023), Abraçadeira (2023), and Giro (2023). In them, Vitra reiterates the idea that the artwork is not an inert result, but a process in motion, thus a point of departure for the creation of new works. The repeated, almost ritualistic gesture produces forms that remain open to space, affecting the perception of those who engage with them.

But it is above all in the works where the bird appears as a mineral presence that the path of this exhibition begins to be projected. Examples include Pulmão da Mina (35th Bienal de São Paulo, 2023), in which iron amulet-arrows, birds coated in copper and silver, indigo pigment, and small Waji boxes evoked a migratory energy; and Amulets (SculptureCenter, New York, 2025), whose central work, Dança, addressed the relationship between iron and nickel in the Earth’s core — the very center that generates the magnetic field capable of orienting bird migration. These works connect with the present, revealing how flight and minerality intertwine in the same gesture of orientation and telluric force, mediated by calculations that allow communication to exist.

Blue, as a color, also returns through the pigment known as Waji, commonly used in ritual contexts and whose composition carries different minerals. Sodium, essential for various biological functions, appears as a basic component of this blue powder. Aluminum, an abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, is also part of its formulation. And silicates, compounds of silicon and oxygen, complete its chemical structure, drawing Waji closer to mineral density. This ensemble grants the pigment not only its intense color but also the material thickness that distinguishes it from industrial indigo.

The ordering present in her practice does not diminish thought but rather asserts itself through composition, a key to her research. This composition emerges from the reorganization of materials often industrial in origin, drawn from workers’ everyday life and systems of labor. In her hands, the apparent order of these objects dissolves: they are torn, cut, realigned, and thus entangled. Vitra’s work, however, is not confined to poetic-scientific parallels. It insists on the necessity of giving voice to nonhuman forces, recognizing that politics is not a monopoly of the human but also unfolds within the regimes of matter and energy.

Within this horizon, her sculptures cannot be read as representations but as activations. Her sculptural gestures reiterate movements that choreograph particles, dust, breaths, and gravities. The birds are ultimate conductors: their beaks carry an accumulation of oralities and vibrations, as well as Luana’s closeness to her family, especially to her father, Jorge da Costa, with whom she has shared works throughout her trajectory. They also appear at the tip of each command staff in the Congado Mineiro, an insignia of power.

These gestures approach a form of stitching: points and knots given to the Earth, like a surgical act that reorganizes physical and vital aspects — body, health, food, home, economic life, social relations, cells, atoms. It is a reorganization of material energy, like a great Ace of Pentacles, an inaugural card of matter that, as it emerges, announces not only the weight of the Earth but also the possibility of new beginnings.

1. PHILLIPS, Anthony C. The physics of stars. John Wiley & Sons, 2013
2. Jodorowsky nos escreve sobre o Ás de ouro: “Energia material. O corpo, a saúde, o aspecto físico, o lugar onde se vive, o território, a roupa, a comida, a casa. O ofício, a vida econômica, a prosperidade, o dinheiro. O lugar no mundo, as relações sociais, as células, os átomos, as moléculas que nos constituem, o planeta Terra. Elemento: terra. Corpo: ao nível dos pés (rente ao chão, como o Ás de Ouros).” No Tarot, os quatro naipes representam dimensões fundamentais da experiência: Paus (fogo, energia criativa), Copas (água, afetos e inconsciente), Espadas (ar, intelecto e conflitos) e Ouros (terra, corpo e materialidade). Nesse último conjunto, o Ás de Ouros ocupa lugar inaugural: anuncia a potência da energia material em sua forma primeira, ligada à prosperidade, à concretude e à vida terrena. A referência ao Ás de Ouros remete à leitura de Alejandro Jodorowsky em O caminho do Tarot (2004), em que essa carta simboliza a energia material