URBE SOLO – ART, CITY AND MOVEMENT
URBE SOLO is a project created to foster dialogue among different artists within public spaces of collective life, such as squares, parks, and sports courts.
The invited artists for the first edition of URBE SOLO were Criola and Modular Dreams, who presented site-specific works in painting and light art, respectively, under the theme Art, City, and Movement, at Praça da Embaixada Nordestina (Bom Retiro, São Paulo), from April 6 to May 19, 2019.
The diversity of artistic languages—ranging from painting to installation, including technology and interactivity—reinforces the core mission of the Instituto URBE: to promote public art and, through it, to create new relationships between people and public space.
OBRAS / ARTISTAS
Pattern Graffiti, 2019 - Criola
Acrylic paint on a soccer court
25.7 × 18.45 m
Pattern Graffiti is a graffiti art intervention on the community soccer field located in the square. With bold lines filled with symbolic elements revealed throughout her creative process, Criola seeks to draw attention to the essential pursuit of self-knowledge, in the face of the overwhelming flow of information and connections that shape our daily lives.
Welded metal and polycarbonate structure, LED mesh, hardware with interactive system
335 × 200 × 37 cm
Dreamdeck is an interactive electronic playground sculpture designed for all ages that also functions as urban furniture, inviting passersby to climb, balance, and move. The movement and weight of each participant on the interactive surface installed on the ground trigger shimmering video images that illuminate the LED mesh beneath the structure.
Through tactile and visual sensory stimuli, the work encourages activities that develop balance and muscle strength, contributing not only to the improvement of motor skills but also to social interaction among people of different ages, strengthening a shared sense of belonging to public space and to the city.
“On some level, Brazilian women carry within themselves the matriarchal power of ancient warrior women who once walked our lands and left us a legacy of struggle, love, joy, and deep connection with nature. I wanted to bring precisely that strength into colors and forms,”
— Criola
Criola (Belo Horizonte, Brazil)
Criola presents her artistic work as a Black woman and representative in the world of graffiti. She is part of the new generation of Brazilian urban artists, guiding her practice through everyday experiences and ongoing dialogues around a wide range of issues—primarily those related to the female universe—and oriented by a conscious search for connection with her ancestry.
Dreamdeck, 2019 - Modular Dreams
Welded metal and polycarbonate structure, LED mesh, hardware with interactive system
335 × 200 × 37 cm
Dreamdeck is an interactive electronic playground sculpture designed for all ages that also functions as urban furniture, inviting passersby to climb, balance, and move. The movement and weight of each participant on the interactive surface installed on the ground trigger shimmering video images that illuminate the LED mesh beneath the structure.
Through tactile and visual sensory stimuli, the work encourages activities that develop balance and muscle strength, contributing not only to the improvement of motor skills but also to social interaction among people of different ages, strengthening a shared sense of belonging to public space and to the city.
Modular Dreams (São Paulo, Brazil)
Founded by artists Priscilla Cesarino and Danilo Barros, Modular Dreams is a studio that explores electronic imagery created through analog processes. Electricity, treated as raw material, is manipulated through video synthesizers, generating videos with colors, shapes, and luminous movements that could never be produced digitally.
