Jorgge Menna Barreto

Jorgge Menna Barreto, Mauvaise Alphabet , 2021. Installation view at Bluecoat, Blundell Lane. Photograph: Rob Battersby

Jorgge Menna Barreto, Mauvaise Alphabet, 2021. Installation view at Bluecoat, Blundell Lane. Photography: Mark McNulty

Jorgge Menna Barreto, Enzyme #2: Life Systems, 2021. Image courtesy the artist

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Jorgge Menna Barreto, Ph.D. (b. 1970, Araçatuba, Brazil) is an artist and educator whose practice and research has been dedicated to site-specific art for over 20 years. Menna Barreto approaches site-specificity from a critical and South American perspective, having taught, lectured, and written extensively on the subject; he has participated in multiple art residencies, projects and exhibitions worldwide. In 2016, he took part in the 32nd São Paulo Biennial with his award-winning project Restauro: a restaurant set up to work with a complex system of environmental restoration in collaboration with settlements of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST); the project travelled to the Serpentine Galleries in 2017. In 2020, as a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Netherlands, he launched a periodical called Enzyme in collaboration with his partner Joélson Buggilla. In Geneva, Switzerland, he has collaborated on the MFA in Socially Engaged Art at HEAD - Haute École d’Arts Appliqués, where he is working on a collaboration focused on ecopedagogy. Since 2015, Menna Barreto has been a professor at the Art Department of Rio de Janeiro State University and is now Assistant Professor at the Art Department of UCSC.

Project Description

Jorgge Menna Barreto presented a version of his durational project Environmental Sculpture, culminating in a mural at Bluecoat and a publication. The publication, Enzyme #2: Life Systems (2021), anchors on Menna Barreto’s research-based practice focussing on how our environment is shaped by what we eat and how we live. Bluecoat’s external wall space on Blundell Lane provided the backdrop for mural, Mauvaise Alphabet (2021). Interested in reorienting our relationship with the natural environment, the mural entangles drawings of common weeds found in Liverpool, creating a community of plants which are mostly invisible and many times unwelcome – even though they play a vital role in the ecosystem. Both the publication and the mural were produced in collaboration with other artists and thinkers, including Liverpool John Moores University students and local mural artist, Anna Jane Houghton.

Discover the image gallery of drawings by Liverpool John Moores University students, here. Artist Anna Jane Houghton studied and responded to these works, influencing her design for the final mural presentation.

Special thanks to:

Enzyme #2

Cos Ahmet, Abbie Bradshaw, Joélson Buggilla (designer and co-founder), Sarah Happersberger (co-editor), Newton Harrison, Linda Jane James, Bonnie Sherk

Mauvaise Alphabet

Anna Jane Houghton (mural artist), Sara Artibani, Emer Bolger, Darcie Chazen, Joy Clarke, Carys de Gruchy, Charlotte Donnelly-Dobson, Abbey Foy, Erin Lorimer, Helen Lydon, Emily Mincher, Karema Munassar, Caitlin Pengelly, Hera Perihar, Will Pollock, Claire Prescott, Francesca Robb, Erin Roddy, Niamh Rowlands, Amelia Scott

Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial with support from the British Council and Catherine Petitgas.

Our full exhibition programme is now closed, but visitors can still enjoy art in person at FACT and Bluecoat until August & September. Plan your visit here.