Luana Vitra Debuts Installation on Rare Earth Metals at Pinacoteca

Artist Luana Vitra has unveiled a new installation titled "Bandeira Branca" at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. The work, which features a white flag tensioned by a large bow and arrow, reflects on violence, desire, and the modern disputes over rare earth metals used in the energy transition. Vitra was selected for the project through a partnership between the Pinacoteca and Chanel.

Born in Contagem, a city in the Quadrilátero Ferrífero region, Vitra is the great granddaughter of a miner. She utilizes iron as her primary medium to draw parallels between the history of mineral extraction and the experience of the Black body, noting a shared history of greed and violence. She describes the process of oxidation as a form of strike by the material.

Pinacoteca General Director Jochen Volz described the work as urgent and poetic. Vitra's diverse background includes early literacy through poetry, training in dance from age 13, and a degree in fashion. Her professional rise includes the Pipa prize and participation in the 35th Bienal de São Paulo with the installation "Pulmão da Mina," which referenced the use of canaries by enslaved Africans to detect toxic gases in mines.