Maria Thereza Alves

2019 Program & Exhibition Artist

All Artists

Maria Thereza Alves (born in 1960, São Paulo, Brazil; lives in Naples, Italy, and Berlin, Germany) has participated in exhibitions including the XV Bienal de Cuenca (2021); the Sydney Biennale (2020); Manifesta 12 (2018); the Sharjah Biennial 13 (2016–2018); the 29th and 32nd Bienal de São Paulo (2010 and 2016); and dOCUMENTA (13) (2012). She is the recipient of The New School’s 2016–2018 Vera List Center Prize for Art and Politics. Alves co-founded the Partido Verde of São Paulo in Brazil. As a member of the International Indian Treaty Council, Alves made an official presentation of human rights abuses of the Indigenous population of Brazil at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

Learn more about Maria Thereza Alves’ practice by listening to episode 2 of the Toronto Biennial of Art Podcast “Short Format”, available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Exhibit

Maria Thereza Alves at Riverdale Park

Alves’s sculpture traces the former curving path of the Don River, straightened in the 1880s to open and speed up the flow of polluted waters as part of the City of Toronto’s Don River Improvement Plan. Phantom Pain makes visible the complicated and often buried histories of Toronto’s watersheds, both natural and built. Yet, in […]

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date and time

September 21 – December 1, 2019

Maria Thereza Alves, Phantom Pain, 2019. natural fibre bags, excavated soil, photograph printed on cloth. Co-commissioned by Evergreen’s Don River Valley Art Program and the Toronto Biennial of Art, and a partnership with the City of Toronto and Toronto Region Conservation Authority. On view at Riverdale Park West as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art (2019). Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy Toronto Biennial of Art.
Maria Thereza Alves, Phantom Pain, 2019. natural fibre bags, excavated soil, photograph printed on cloth. Co-commissioned by Evergreen’s Don River Valley Art Program and the Toronto Biennial of Art, and a partnership with the City of Toronto and Toronto Region Conservation Authority. On view at Riverdale Park West as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art (2019). Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy Toronto Biennial of Art.
Maria Theresa Alves, Phantom Pain, 2019. Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art.

Partners

Exhibit

Maria Thereza Alves at 259 Lake Shore Blvd E

Excavated soil from Bickford Park accumulates in 259 Lake Shore Blvd as part of Alves’s participatory project, enacting a communal unearthing of one of Toronto’s lost rivers: Garrison Creek. The Garrison Creek Ravine was covered over by infill from residential development, but along the southern edge of the park, the parapet of the former Harbord […]

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date and time

September 21 – December 1, 2019

Maria Thereza Alves, Garrison Creek, 2019, natural fibre bags, excavated soil, photograph printed on cloth. Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art. On view at 259 Lake Shore Blvd E as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art (2019). Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy Toronto Biennial of Art.
Maria Thereza Alves, Garrison Creek, 2019, natural fibre bags, excavated soil, photograph printed on cloth. Commissioned by the Toronto Biennial of Art. On view at 259 Lake Shore Blvd E as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art (2019). Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid. Courtesy Toronto Biennial of Art.

Partners

Program

Short Format Podcast Series

Short Format is a podcast series created by Aliya Pabani and Angela Shackel for the Toronto Biennial of Art. In expanding dialogues around the inaugural Toronto Biennial of Art, selected artists discussed their practice and processes in a series of short format podcasts and audiograms. Participating artists and collectives included Adrian Blackwell, Ayumi Goto, Caroline […]

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date and time

September 21 – December 1

12:00am – 11:59pm

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