In 2017, the MESA Institute launched the book “Domingos da criação: A poetic collection of the experimental in art and education” organized by Jessica Gogan in collaboration with the critic and curator Frederico Morais. The book is conceived as an “archive book” in order to generate a platform for reflection on Sundays and their expanded […]

On December 1st, Instituto Mesa, with the support of the British Council’s Plural Program, will launch the docufiction – Tybyra and the Harlequin (2022) at the Cinemateca do MAM, followed by a debate with filmmaker Susan Thomson and special guests Azizi Cypriano, Fabio Scarano and Okara Yby with mediation by Mariana Baltar. Result of the online […]

In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Domingos da Criação, experimental events organized by the Brazilian critic and curator Frederico Morais at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro in 1971, Instituto MESA together with Grupo de los Domingos, an initiative of Latin American researchers, launches the digital platform www.osdomingos.org created from a […]

In 2017, Instituto MESA published the book-archive “Domingos da Criação: a poetic collection of the experimental in art and education” organized by Jessica Gogan in collaboration with Frederico Morais exploring the transgressive series of happenings, Domingos da Criação [Sundays of Creation] that he organized at MAM Rio in 1971. On the occasion of the events’ […]

LIVES MESA is a new initiative designed both to publicize MESA projects and to continue the debates of the issues of the institute’s bilingual online journal Revista MESA. Beginning in July 2021 the program takes place on the last Saturday of each month and will continue through November this year. Lives address questions and themes […]

Publication developed in collaboration with Frederico Morais and awarded with an Itaú Rumos 2015-2016 grant aims to recover and examine the history of Domingos da criação, participatory happenings organized by the curator in 1971.

Art + Care constitutes a network of action, research, and learning focusing on the idea of care as method, bringing together a diverse group of artists, researchers, therapists, cultural workers, and social agents.

The project in collaboration with Luiz Camillo Osorio and the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo (MAM-SP) grounded in two key 1967 exhibitions: “Pop Art Biennial” and “New Objectivity”.

Developed in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Niterói (MAC), the 1st MESA Podcast addresses questions of environmental art and social activism related to the exhibition Baía de Guanabara: Águas e Vidas Escondidas (Guanabara Bay: Hidden Lives and Waters) held at MAC from August 6 to November 6, 2016.

The project "The Experimental Legacy of Hélio Oiticica for Education" aims to develop an in-depth study of the artist's work and its potential as a corpus of experimental pedagogies.

The Baldia Pharmacy of Boa Viagem is a collective art and health initiative focusing on the use and study of medicinal plants that was inaugurated as part of Brazilian artist Carlos Vergara’s exhibition at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), Niterói, Brazil in 2013.

Inspired by the exhibition Rubens Gerchman: With the Resignation Letter in My Pocket (August 9th, 2014- February 8th 2015) and the legacy of the artist, Instituto MESA and Colectivo E created in partnership with Casa Daros the course Contemporary Laboratory: Proposals and Discoveries of What Is Art (Or Could Be). Presented at the end of 2014, the program drew on Gerchman’s provocation for an art school to be active process of "creative immersion and constant questioning” to promote an experimental laboratory for a group of 17 young artists working with different media and practices.

Publicness in Art is a series of regional seminars coordinated by Instituto MESA and funded by the 10th edition of the Brazilian National Art Foundation´s (Funarte) grant initiative Networks of Encounters in the Visual Arts. The series aims to reflect on the ethical and aesthetic complexity and public roles and possibilities of contemporary artistic production in a specifically Brazilian context in three separate regions – Rio de Janeiro/Niterói; Porto Alegre;/Rio Grande de Sul; Cariri/Sertão.

The international seminar Art & Environmental Action: Encounters between Contemporary Art and Society was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Niterói (MAC) from November 11^th to 13^th, 2013. The seminar was organized in collaboration with Instituto MESA and supported by Deveron Arts and the graduate program in art and PROGRAD of the Federal Fluminense University (UFF). The seminar brought together national and international artists, scholars, curators and educators to discuss aesthetic and ethical issues and practices related to social and environmental action.

Fernweh was a travelling-curator project organized by Deveron Arts in the North East of Scotland and Mary Jane Jacob, Curator & Director of Exhibitions, School of the Art Institute of Chicago that aimed to investigate notions of travel and hospitality within community and socially engaged art. Over a five-day period in May 2013 a group of international curators (including representatives from Instituto MESA) traveled throughout rural parts of Northern Scotland exploring issues of art and community through a hosting, visiting and traveling program in collaboration with a series of arts organizations across Scotland.

The Nucleus began its activities in 2009 in conjunction with the exhibition Carlos Vergara: the graphic dimension, a silent energy. Returning in September 2010 and active until May 2013, the Nucleus was guided by the philosophy of promoting MAM Rio as a place of creation and of expanding this poetic possibility outside of the museum within the city of Rio de Janeiro.

As part of the Experimental Nucleus of Education and Art at Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro (MAM) two international seminars Reconfiguring the Public: art, pedagogy & participation I & II were presented at MAM in 2011 and 2012. The seminars brought together Brazilian and international collaborators interested in new perspectives for the public role of art museums and cultural institutions in 21st century.

In 2010 and 2011 at the invitation of the Secretary of Culture of Espírito Santo and the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, Instituto MESA developed a proposal/vision for the educational role of Cais das Artes for the state of Espírito Santo, a new museum with the architecture of Paulo Mendes da Rocha that is in the process of being constructed in the city of Vitória.

MoMA's International Program and Department of Education organized their second International Museum Education Institute focusing on Brazil in collaboration with Instituto MESA. The two-day event held in July 2011 explored the legacies of the pedagogical theories of such figures as Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal in artistic practices and museum education in Brazil and the United States since the 1960s.

The project Collection of Multiple Voices was developed in response to an invitation from Pablo Helguera, Pedagogic Curator, and Monica Hoff, General Coordinator of the pedagogic project of the 8th Mercosul Biennial, Essays in Geopoetics, to evaluate the expanded field of pedagogy planned for this biennial.

The education program Experiences in the Labyrinth inaugurated a territory for participation and multiplication of art/education processes based on the legacy of Hélio Oiticica’s art practices and ideas during the exhibition Hélio Oiticica –Museum is the World that took place in various locations in Rio de Janeiro from September 11 - November 21, 2010.

From April 27 - July 18, 2010, The Andy Warhol Museum presented the exhibition José Rufino: Blots & Figments as the culmination of the artist’s residency in Pittsburgh (USA) and his collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer Disease Research Center (ADRC).

In November 2009 in conjunction with the 7th Mercosul Biennial of contemporary art, Instituto MESA presented a course for cultural coordinators and representatives from SESC (Social Service of Commerce) cultural centers working throughout Brazil. Discussions focused on the roles of curators, educators and cultural agents and the possibilities and challenges for the visual arts and related art institutions to operate in an expanded field of action and reflection.

The course Art and Society in Brazil offered a group of American school teachers from Pittsburgh a rich experience of Brazilian art, culture and society through a variety of lectures, meetings, workshops and visits to diverse cultural spaces in and around Rio de Janeiro such as Museum of Contemporary Art, Niterói (MAC), Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, Hélio Oiticica Center and the folklore museum Casa do Pontal.

In April 2009 the Museum of Art of Espírito Santo Dionísio Del Santo (MAES) presented the exhibition Andy Warhol: Art for Everyday. Drawing its curatorial themes from the artist’s own practices of collecting, documenting, reproducing, collaborating and experimenting, the exhibition aimed to examine the key role of process in Warhol’s work combined with the concept of a museum inspired by these practices to effect new artistic and educational possibilities both inside and outside the gallery context.

Comuniarte was developed by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niterói (MAC de Niterói) as an offshoot of its Art and Environmental Action program to support the work of a community center called Módulo de Ação Comunitária (MACinho or “little MAC) that was then being built.