Art and war seem like antagonistic words, but here they come together in this interesting set of 37 Afghan carpets from the personal collection of curator Victor Nosek. 

Held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), the exhibition "Afghanistan - carpets of peace and war" is based on MON's permanent collection of works. Unlike other cultural institutions, a museum's role, in addition to caring for and expanding its collection, is to create dialogues between its works and the exhibitions it holds. This is one of the Museum's proposals.

It is worth remembering that MON has the largest collection of Asian art in Latin America, following the donation of thousands of works years ago by diplomat and professor Fausto Godoy, which marked a new curatorial vocation. 

Space was then made in the collection for Asian, African and Latin American art, in line with the great museums of the world, making it distinct from the Eurocentric tendency that dominates Western culture. This initiative has positioned MON among the great international museums. 

In this vein, we are now bringing to our audience the ancient tradition of Afghan tapestry, which in recent decades has incorporated war themes into its traditional designs. Both themes are presented in this new exhibition, divided into two axes: peace and war.

More than appreciating the aesthetics, the show touches us by its proposal and leads us to perceive the world through the provocative gaze of denunciation. It offers visitors this unique experience of searching for meaning and reflecting on such a complex subject through the beauty of art.

Afghanistan is one of the most politically sensitive regions on the planet. Nestled between such diverse giants as Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran and China, its geographic location not only places it at the crossroads of great civilizations but also of some of the most important religions on the planet: Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, mainly.

Afghanistan is home to a very ancient civilization, which already existed as a Persian domain when Alexander III of Macedon, the Great, walked through the region and founded Balkh, one of his most advanced outposts in Asia, in 334 BCE. Part of the population still retains physical traces of their ancestral Greeks. This same population, with equally ancestral habits, is made up of a large cast of ethnic groups and tribes that resulted from the occupation by invaders of various origins – Persians, Greeks, Mongols, etc. – throughout their history, which have instilled, both genetically and in deep-rooted traditions, values ​​and concepts that each of them defends with fierce zeal.

Proud of their roots, these ethnic groups and tribes, which are divided between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam – approximately 90% are Sunni and 10% Shiite, roughly speaking – do not accept the preponderance of any other over them, no matter how large it may be in number, even though the Sunni Taliban, of the Pashtun ethnic group, currently dominate the government and public life and oppress other ethnic and religious groups. Afghans are even less accepting of interference from other cultures, and they remember the period when two of the largest empires of the 19th century, the Russian and the British, fought for hegemony over Central Asia in the region, which history has recorded as the “Great Game”.

It was this same spirit of resistance that was ignited in December 1979 when the Soviet Union, heeding the call of the communist government then in power in Afghanistan, invaded the country to support it in the fight against the mujahideen insurgents, made up of groups that rebelled against the oppression of the Marxist creed, which they understood to be a degradation of the values ​​of Islam. This was because the Soviets sought to impose their secular concepts, locked the mosques and prevented public worship. The resistance took on dramatic proportions when the Soviets abandoned Afghanistan in 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, leaving room for the intensification of confrontations between the hardened militants who had taken refuge in the mountains that make up the country's rugged geography. At the same time, Western troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), led by the United States, occupied the country after the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001, which, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, were carried out by Al Qaeda, one of the most seasoned groups of the mujahideen.

After several political episodes that followed since then, with the departure of Western troops in August 2021, the Taliban came to power in Kabul. Part of the population that resists their designs has been seeking shelter in other parts of the planet, including Brazil, which already has around five thousand refugees.

"Afghanistan - rugs of peace and war" is the new project by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON), which is on display in the Eye Tower (first floor and second floor). The exhibition was curated by collector Victor Nosek, with the collaboration of professor and diplomat Fausto Godoy.

The exhibition brings together 37 rugs from Afghanistan depicting scenes of peace and war and reflecting different moments in the country's socio-political and cultural landscape. The exhibition also features 19 pieces of Afghan jewelry that are part of the daily life of the people from the regions where the rugs were made.

Afghan tribal war rugs are part of the "art as a portrait of war" tradition. 

They are a dramatic update of this tradition. They represented the Russo-Afghan war and have been produced by various semi-nomadic pastoral tribes, whose way of life remained unchanged for centuries. 

Weaved in the highlands when the snow melted, where Afghans had gone in search of pastures for their flocks, and in their permanent homes during the winter. 

The "living" carpets are the fruit of this way of life. 

The high-quality wool was dyed with natural dyes collected during the annual migration. Weavers, in the silence of their tents, free from interference, used simple horizontal looms fixed to the ground. The traditional themes, developed from memory, without prior drawing, are characteristic of each artist. Preferably created for their own use, the surplus is sold and the proceeds used to buy carnelian jewelry, stones used to ward off the evil eye. 

At first in timid appearances within the traditional themes, tanks, helicopters, jets and grenades soon occupied the entire composition. Tribal and contemporary, the war rugs in this exhibition belong to the first ten years of that war, between 1970-1980, when pastoral nomadism was still possible. The advent of endemic famine and the annihilation of the herds made nomadism and the resulting production of quality "living" carpets impossible! 

May this exhibition contribute to reflection and humanity finally achieve the peace and progress it is destined for! 

Victor Nosek 
Collection and Curatorship 

dec. 1980
Handwoven rug made on horizontal looms using sheep and camel wool dyed with natural pigments. Mane and tail hair from horses are used for the side cords
129 x 92 cm

dec. 1960/70
Handwoven rug made on horizontal looms using sheep and camel wool dyed with natural pigments. Mane and tail hair from horses are used for the side cords
210 x 109 cm

déc. 1980
Handwoven rug made on horizontal looms using sheep and camel wool dyed with natural pigments. Mane and tail hair from horses are used for the side cords
143 x 98 cm

dec. 1980
Handwoven rug made on horizontal looms using sheep and camel wool dyed with natural pigments. Mane and tail hair from horses are used for the side cords
152 x 92 cm

dec. 1960/70
Handwoven rug made on horizontal looms using sheep and camel wool dyed with natural pigments. Mane and tail hair from horses are used for the side cords
194 x 102 cm

"Afghanistan - rugs of peace and war" is the new project at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON). The exhibition can be seen from October 24 at the Eye Tower (first floor and second floor). The exhibition was curated by collector Victor Nosek, with the collaboration of professor and diplomat Fausto Godoy.

The exhibition brings together 37 rugs from Afghanistan depicting scenes of peace and war and reflecting different moments in the country's socio-political and cultural landscape. The exhibition will also feature 19 pieces of Afghan jewelry that are part of the daily life of the people in the regions where the rugs were made.

"Today, a museum is not just a place for preservation, but a space for dialog and reflection. The Oscar Niemeyer Museum exemplifies this role with a collection that ranges from art to historical and anthropological items, expanding the physical barriers of what a museum space is," says Luciana Casagrande Pereira, Paraná's Secretary of State for Culture. 

"Our aim is also to broaden cultural references. In this way, MON highlights the richness of Asian and African cultures, which make up one of the largest specialized collections in the Americas, presented both in long-term exhibitions and in itinerant exhibitions throughout Paraná," says the secretary.

MON director Juliana Vosnika says that the exhibition is an opportunity for visitors to see the ancient tradition of Afghan tapestry up close. "It's worth remembering that MON has the largest collection of Asian art in Latin America, following the donation of thousands of works years ago by diplomat and professor Fausto Godoy, which marked a new curatorial vocation," he says. 

Space was then made in the collection for Asian, African and Latin American art, in line with the great museums of the world, making it distinct from the Eurocentric tendency that dominates Western culture. This initiative has positioned the Oscar Niemeyer Museum among the great international museums. 

"In this vein, we are now bringing to our audience the ancient tradition of Afghan tapestry, which in recent decades has incorporated war themes into its traditional designs," says Juliana. Both themes are presented in this new exhibition, divided into two axes: peace and war.

Fausto Godoy, who served as Brazil's ambassador to Afghanistan for around two years, talks about the political importance of the exhibition, and curator Victor Nosek explains that the rugs that reflect the theme of peace are the oldest, and represent pastoral scenes, nature in general or geometric shapes. 

Tribal and contemporary, the war rugs reflect the period between 1970-1980 and will be exhibited separately on the second floor of the Tower. "We need to look at them, perceive that aesthetic and reflect on how it is possible to create beauty in war," says Godoy.

He points out that Afghanistan is one of the most politically sensitive regions on the planet. "Nestled between giants as diverse as Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran and China, its geographical location not only places it at the crossroads of great civilizations, but also of some of the most important religions on the planet: Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, in particular," he says.

The collector and curator of the exhibition explains that Afghan tribal war rugs are part of the tradition: art as a portrait of war. "They are a dramatic update of this tradition," says Nosek. 

According to him, these pieces represent the early years of the Russo-Afghan war and were produced by different semi-nomadic pastoral tribes, whose way of life remained unchanged for centuries. "May this exhibition contribute to reflection and humanity finally achieve the peace and progress to which it is destined," says the curator.

Afghanistan - rugs of peace and war

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Much more than just an object of contemplation, art is a powerful tool for changing how something is perceived, overcoming established standards, and seeking new values.

This is the case with the exhibition "Pure Gold," presented by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, a thought-provoking collection of works that unites designers from different countries in a common universal reflection: humanity's relationship with nature.

Upcycling has gained traction worldwide by proposing different approaches to processing discarded materials and creating new, valuable products. In addition to raising awareness of alternative production techniques, we see examples of what can be done here.

It is no coincidence that, in addition to this exhibition, the MON is simultaneously holding other exhibitions that address the same issue. The reinterpretation is present in the adjacent rooms, both with the Mexican artist Gabriel de la Mora and the Brazilian artist Barrão, both artists with similar approaches to discussion.

Here, in dialogue with the Museum's permanent collection, seven design works from the collection are featured in the exhibition, offering visitors the opportunity for comparison. When displayed side by side, they reveal that there is no aesthetic or functional difference between those using conventional or recycled materials.

We understand that what has become urgent and urgent is not the presentation of magical solutions, but an invitation to reflect on the subject, through intimate and necessary reflection. As a living space for exchange, the museum allows each of us this moment, something made possible through art.

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika
Director-President of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum

Pure Gold or: Why It Is Worthwhile to Sometimes Pay More Attention to Domestic Waste

“Bayern Munich are playing today in shirts made of rubbish.” This was a headline in the Bild newspaper in November 2016 for a pre-match report on the German football Bundesliga game between Bayern and 1899 Hoffenheim. Of course, this did not mean second-hand shirts from a collection of old clothes, but, as the report said, shirts made completely of “rubbish from the oceans” – “of 28 old plastic bottles that were fished out of the sea.” The report continued: “With these shirts, sports’ outfitter Adidas and the environmental campaigners Parley want to warn us about the pollution of the seas. Each year 20 million tons of plastic rubbish are thrown into the sea, and it takes a shocking 600 years for this to decompose.”1

 Even if this initiative was not motivated solely by concern for the environment, and Adidas probably will have had important marketing interests too, this use of resources is one example for the increasingly dynamic development of recycling technologies, and also for the high levels of acceptance of and appreciation for widely available recycled products. 

This was not always the case. It is not so long ago that the word recycling conjured up images of paper that had the colour of potato peelings, or shredded street surfaces, seen as quick fixes or a form of replacement material that should never be used wherever any aesthetic standards needed to be taken into account. This has now fundamentally changed. Nearly every day, we can read about new innovative products made entirely of “upcycled” plastic, old jeans, porcelain, rubber, and many other materials – presented not just in the business news, but also under the heading of “research and technology”. This means that the products discussed are not all semi-manufactured or basic products like toilet paper or bricks2, but also high-end articles in the furniture and textiles industries, products where both technical and aesthetic quality are decisive for commercial success. 

Prototypes for this strategy would include Philippe Starck’s Hudson Chair and Herman Miller’s Aeron Chair. These two chairs, and many more recycled products, are based on reusing materials that have been used before to make more or less the same kind of product, and that are first returned to their original state as mash, liquid, powder or fibre, even if they will again become chairs in their new shape and form. In terms of the production process, therefore, these products are not very different from tried and tested grey-brown recycled paper; and yet the modern textiles of a sports’ outfitter and the simple office-use stationery from a paper mill are in fact worlds apart. Aesthetic enhancement is one key development and difference. At the Cebit computer and technology fair in 2017, the Japanese company Epson presented a piece of equipment that worked with the so-called PaperLab process. The first step is to shred printed “old” paper, and then the shredded paper that this produces is transformed into new paper at the rate of 720 sheets per hour, with almost no need for water.3

It can be fairly assumed that it will not be long before decentrally operating machines like this Epson will be applied to other fields and technologies of production within domestic households. One example is 3D printers, which are now widely used. They can be fed with sorted and finely ground (in our own homes) household goods, and then perform whatever domestic needs are at hand, from making spare parts to small repairs. The necessary programming skills will not be a problem, as Generation Minecraft already has these today. 

But we have not yet come quite so far. At present, these recycling technologies are still used centrally or at least within the spheres of influence of the companies that make these goods (Adidas, Emeco, Herman Miller, Epson). This in turn means that access is relatively limited and usually quite expensive. Just how expensive the use of this kind of process can be and how that will influence end-user prices, is shown in the case of an attempt to use recycling to transform one of the most significant “environmental polluters” of recent decades into an environmentally friendly product. The company Original Food, based in Freiburg, Germany, wanted to produce compostable coffee capsules as an alternative to the Nespresso version with high aluminium content that has led to around 4,000 tons of capsule trash each year.4 This Original Food initiative sounds like a piece of good news, but the problem is that the price of the environmentally friendly capsule is 20 per cent higher than Nestlé’s product – and also lacks the clout of the “womanizer” George Clooney. Launching a new product could be simpler. 

Difficulties notwithstanding, these examples show that, given the right technological adaptations and equipment, change is possible, while current developments and increasing acceptance mean that sooner or later processes like these will transform the principle of reuse into one – if not the – standard in raw materials acquisition. 

It is true that political and financial programmes develop the greatest force of change in this field – and not the great ideas that designers have. In the examples of football shirts, furniture or coffee capsules made of recycled materials given here, the products are substitutes that look just like the “ecologically incorrect” products, with the exception of a hardly noticeable or invisible composition of materials. In other words, the success of these products is based only on a political and moral idea, or an economic or regulatory framework. 

This is very different in the case of products that rework used and worn relatively cheap objects from everyday life “as found” materials. These products do not return recycled objects by means of technical processes to their original material form so as to make another entirely “new” product. Instead they leave the found materials more or less as found – in their final and specific material and formal composition as a product. Even if this strategy does not perfectly match the definition of the German Waste Management Act5, or, put another way, does not correspond to our understanding of the recycling process, this form of reuse is nonetheless a very attractive alternative to the industrial “procurement of secondary materials” – at least from the perspective of design. 

It is the aim of the exhibition Pure Gold to show this. It presents a total of 76 examples by 53 designers from the regions of Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Near East, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia, and Southeast Asia, who have one clear thing in common. With varying degrees of perfection, all of these works are made either entirely by hand or with the help of just the simplest tools from used and worn materials – trash or the cheapest materials around. This means that expenditure on both equipment and operations is low. Works like those shown here can be made in the smallest workshops, within industrially more or less under-developed structures or independently at a private workbench. 

To summarize: reuse here is much less “fundamental” and thus much less complex. The added value of the used materials is only partially due to the purely material qualities of the original material. It is also due to the use of the physical, compositional, configured or just the aesthetic features of a deliberately selected or randomly found product. While industrial recycling aims to generate a quantity of products that are all as identical as possible (this is the only way to make a product like the Bayern football shirt), these “as found” strategies are primarily interested in using very specific known or hitherto neglected qualities such as formability, colour, firmness, haptics, or material structure and to add nuances in a new context. Sometimes this goes so far as to show the materials demonstratively while their original context and actual function can only be ascertained with a good deal of detective work. Probably no one would notice that Waltraud Münzhuber’s containers are nothing more than woven videotapes of various “favourite films.” And it would probably be just as difficult to see in Paul Cocksedge’s Styrene lamp a geometrically precise and yet relatively simple compilation of heat-reshaped polystyrene coffee cups. The origin of the Free Range stools by El Ultimo Grito is also not recognizable at first sight; these dented items are cleverly reshaped and compressed cardboard boxes. 

Above all, it is the diversity of the found materials that makes this source of materials into a realistic alternative to the energy intensive reuse of standard raw materials. Found materials can be papers of all kinds, corrugated card, glass, car tyres, cork, denim, builders’ wood, plastic baskets, wooden planks, wool, fridge coatings, plastic bags, flip-flops, sticky and PVC tape, steel offcuts, cheap bags, and much more. If we add the characteristic attributes to this list of materials – it is after all the physical and aesthetic features that speak for and against the use of a material – then we can get a rough idea of the immense imaginative scope that this nearly inexhaustible stock of alleged trash holds for contemporary and future design. 

Of course this form of design and production is not really new. It has similarities with the principle of the ready-made in the fine arts and with the adhocism propagated by Charles Jencks in the early 1970s6, or with various aspects of the DIY movements from the 1960s to today, or the drop-out practices of the hippies in the 1960s and 1970s. 

We can also recall here how articles of daily use are improvised in times of scarcity, originating from a completely different situation, but made and used with the same impulse and design principles as the works shown in this exhibition.7 

In contrast to these “movements,” however (perhaps with the exception of objects of use made out of need and necessity), today’s development in design-motivated recycling (or recycling-motivated design) on show in this exhibition has no missionary urgency and comes with no abstract and idealistic ideology. Instead, these works derive from a mix of curiosity and imagination, an analytical perspective and often incredible patience, combined with crafts skills and a solid knowledge of the “raw materials” used. It is probably exactly this combination of very sober skill and artistic talent that has enabled this phenomenon in design to spread all around the world. This also means that these manually made and “improvised” works are no less significant than technologies developed for mass production and serial recycling. 

For sure, in view of the 320,000 paper coffee cups discarded per hour (!) in Germany alone8, the importance of industrially managed recycling cannot be overemphasized. This is also true of the fact that manual production can simply and easily be carried out with the simplest of tools, and can lead to outstanding results, as this exhibition shows. The quality is not just in the design, but with the right handicrafts, also monetary. 

The designer Stuart Haygarth holds an undisputed top place in this respect.9 The Drop chandelier he designed in 2007 is made of hundreds of different carefully cleaned plastic bottle bases rearranged in a form resembling drops of water as the product’s key design idea. The production and material both show that this product could be made anywhere in the world, only if enough plastic bottles are available – but these are washed up on our shores everywhere. 

The only reason why this classic example of exceptional upcycling cannot be included in this exhibition is its price of several thousand pounds sterling. This shows that we are not all that far away from the value of gold that the title of this exhibition suggests, particularly when we take a closer look at all the trash around us.

2 See Neue Zürcher Zeitung, international edition, 22 February 2017, pp. 38/39.

3 See Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 23 March 2017, p. 19.

4 See Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 19 March 2017, p. 24.

5 “Recycling“ is defined as “any process of use that processes waste products into products or materials to be used either for their original purpose or for other purposes. This includes the use and processing of organic materials that are to be used as fuel or for back-filling” (§ 3 subsection 25, German Waste Management Act).

6 Charles Jencks, Nathan Silver, Adhocism, New York, 1973.

7 See Werkbund-Archiv, Blasse Dinge, Werkbund und Waren 1945 – 1949. Eine Ausstellung des Werkbund-Archivs im Martin-Gropius-Bau vom 12.8. – 8.10.1989, exhibition magazine, Berlin, no year.

8 The number 320,000 is taken from Barbara Kuchler, “Über die Verhältnisse der anderen Leben,” in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 November 2016.

9 Stuart Haygarth, www.stuarthaygarth.com/

Upcycling in Latin America: A Long Tradition

Reusing cheap materials or garbage to create new objects and extending their life cycle has been part of Latin American material culture for a long time. Whereas in parts of the world like Europe this practice derives from environmental awareness, in these countries it derives from an inventiveness dictated by a need for survival. Poverty historically created vast population clusters marginalized from consumer society. Lack of access to industrially manufactured goods prompted people to use their own hands to create and make objects aimed at satisfying their everyday needs.

In Brazil, up to the 1970s, the population was predominantly rural. Creating objects for family or community use was based on natural local elements as raw materials. Straw would become baskets to carry supplies, woven hammocks to sleep in or the roofs of homes; clay would be transformed into vessels to store water and into plates to eat from; tree branches and trunks combined with leather from animals would result in items of furniture. In the country dubbed as the one with the greatest biodiversity in the world, there is no shortage of raw materials to supply the different requirements of resistance, lightness, durability, and adaptability to the local climate in various typologies of objects.

With growing urbanization, materials derived from industrial society’s leftovers were added to naturally available materials. The garbage of the wealthiest became raw materials for the population brackets at the base of the pyramid. Thus, reusing leftovers, as “infected” as they might seem, became an everyday practice. Another frequent attitude was to dislocate objects from the functions they were primarily made to serve and adapt them to new functions.

The Italian architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992), who came to Brazil in the 1940s and stayed until the end of her days, admiringly documented these practices, which she came to know in the late 1950s when she started to work in Bahia state, in the northeastern region of the country, poorer than industrialized São Paulo, where she had been living up to then. Lina fell in love with quilts made from small fabric scraps and with utensils created through reusing various aluminium packaging. Paradigmatic objects she collected during her wanderings were kerosene lamps used to light homes with no electric power supply, made of garbage – ironically, some of them used discarded burnt-out bulbs as the container for the combustible fluid.

Another intellectual who was deeply interested in such practices was designer Aloísio Magalhães (1927–1982). In the 1970s, he created the Centro Nacional de Referência Cultural (National Centre of Cultural Reference), which documented local efforts. Aloísio was motivated by a question from the then Brazilian minister of Industry and Commerce Severo Gomes, who asked why Brazilian products did not have their own character. According to the designer, this was due to unfamiliarity with Brazilian material culture. As head of the Centre, Aloísio conducted research on textiles, ceramics production, beverage labels, budget brands, indigenous crafts, and the recycling of industrial leftovers, among other themes, all carried out in order to explore the character of Brazilian products and designs.

The Centre was a public institution trying to question the function-oriented quality dominating institutionalized Brazilian design at the time, which was due to the great influence of the German Ulm School of Design model on the first design school established in Brazil – Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI; Higher Education School of Industrial Design), founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1963. ESDI’s programme followed that of the Ulm School, from where some of the professors came. Adoption of this international style had become a prevailing power not only at ESDI, but also at schools opened later and in the everyday activities of designers.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, echoes of concerns regarding “recycling in design” started to reach Brazil, coming particularly from Europe, along with environmental initiatives against exaggerated consumerism and a sense of anxiety about having more and more stuff based on a Western way of life. Expressions such as “Kleenex culture” came to critically represent this mentality, as did “use and discard”. Those movements started to question the very use of the expression “to discard”. After all, what is really discarded? If it is no longer at home, it is still part of the town, of the country – and ultimately – of the world. Cargo ships transport compacted waste from highly industrialized countries to far-away places in the southern hemisphere, trying to “discard” their filth. However, this will continue to be “within” the planet. We needed to start to look at waste as the only resource growing on the planet, as the American thinker Buckminster Fuller foretold.

Those international echoes came to Latin America, ironically at a time when many countries in the region – Brazil included – were going through great economic booms, weakening the population‘s recycling efforts. Thus, through international environmental movements fuelled by a growing environmental crisis, reuse initiatives gained new meaning – now as positioning statements, and almost like an ideological manifesto for the planet’s future.

The ideas of some branches of design in the northern hemisphere also influenced Latin America, expressed, for instance, in the Conscious, Simple – Consciously Simple exhibition curated by Volker Albus and completed in 1998 by ifa, which later, in May 1999, came to Museu da Casa Brasileira in São Paulo. Albus showed an alternative culture of products conceived, produced and handled in a consciously simple way, which represented a shock to Brazilian ears used to the Ulm School’s industrial pragmatism.¹

In November of the same year, at the Novos alquimistas (New Alchemists) exhibition at Itaú Cultural, I gathered objects resulting from cheap materials or garbage upcycling. In the same exhibition space, vernacular creations by people with no formal instruction from around the country stood side by side with the work of educated designers who sought inspiration both in Brazilian traditional culture and in new ideas emerging from discussions in the northern hemisphere. Many designers taking part in the show referred to their grandparents as “recycling masters”, people capable of reusing everything, of transforming waste into gold.

As I noted in the catalogue, “recycling, reusing, recontextualizing became part of our everyday lives, and not only in the realm of objects. Graphic design changed with image scanning and distortion made possible through a computer. In fashion, from the grunge movement as inspiration, also to haute couture, it came to the streets. Samplers are very present in the universe of pop, and other music movements take advantage of reusing elements of traditional local culture and of other worlds. The dictatorship of ‘good taste’ no longer exists, in any domain. Recirculation of information, forms, and sound marks our everyday lives. In the field of objects, it does not matter what the nuances of each different country are, there is a common questioning of the type of progress adopted by industrial society.”²

Latin American designers now selected for Pure Gold reveal their dual influence of internal vernacular design and of social movements influencing international design. Brunno Jahara and Domingos Tótora from Brazil and Colectivo Ático de Diseño from Argentina are relatively new protagonists on the scene, and even though they share similar views regarding design today, each of them chooses different procedures.

Domingos Tótora starts by designing his raw materials himself, developed from discarded cardboard packaging. This is not simple reuse, as a whole new process is involved in the transformation of the material. Cardboard is mixed with water and glue, and then pressed and moulded, acquiring resistance. Only later will it gain the forms imagined by the designer.

The path of Brunno Jahara is the recontextualization of very cheap pieces in plastic or clay, industrially manufactured in large series. In that process of dislocation and regrouping, he generates new uses and, particularly, new meanings. These are ready-made objects.

Curator Luján Cambariere, on the other hand, in her Colectivo Ático de Diseño, starts with antiquities and invites designers to recreate the pieces, inserting them into new repertoires.

None of these three designers hide the genesis of their objects, but they do not make them overly evident either. Their objects do not intend to be manifestoes or statements; they are not loud. All of them display great ability to transform their environment through economical methods and resources. Further, they display inventiveness and an ability to offer solutions, even when they are far from ideal conditions and far from technological sophistication. Form transcends function so that it can incorporate different functionalities. Jahara and Ático de Diseño manage resources like humour and irony well, while Tótora chooses very clear silent poetry.

All these objects invite us, as consumers, to combine consumption and community living with the pleasure of aesthetic joy and a desire for a better world.

Adélia Borges
Curator | Latin American Region | São Paulo, Brazil.

1 Conscious, Simple – Consciously Simple. The Emergence of an Alternative Product Culture, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), Stuttgart 1998.

2 “Novos alquimistas,” in Consumo Cotidiano/Arte, São Paulo, Itaú Cultural, 1999.

The Goethe-Institut is the international cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany. Since its founding in Germany in 1951, its mission has been to foster cultural exchange, education, and social discourse in the international context, as well as to support the teaching and learning of the German language in dialogue with the world, promoting diversity, understanding, and trust, encouraging access to the German language, and supporting the free development of culture and science. The institution believes in the potential of international cultural exchange, nurtured and strengthened by connections between artists, activists, academic thinkers, researchers, creative minds, and institutional partnerships. In this context, the Goethe-Institut reaffirms its commitment to the UN 2030 Agenda action plans, promoting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals through cultural, educational, and environmental initiatives that encourage equity, diversity, and global sustainability.

Around 20,000 cultural events take place worldwide each year in cooperation with partners. Through residency programs, collaborations, and co-productions, the institute fosters the creation of global networks among cultural professionals.

Today, the Goethe-Institut São Paulo develops and supports a broad spectrum of cultural events, disseminating and updating local themes present in the contemporary German scene, in addition to mapping the most pressing issues in Brazil through its projects.

"PURE GOLD – UPCYCLED! UPGRADED!" is an exhibition by the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (ifa) in cooperation with the Oscar Niemeyer Museum and the Goethe-Institut São Paulo.

Upcycling is the practice that best represents the alliance of contemporary design with a growing ecological awareness. Unlike traditional recycling, upcycling transforms discarded or unused materials into products of greater value, both functionally and aesthetically. It is a creative way to give new life to objects that would otherwise be considered trash, promoting conscious consumption, originality, and environmental responsibility. In the world of design, upcycling not only reduces environmental impact but also inspires unique solutions with their own stories and identity. Previously discarded materials take on new forms, bearing the marks of time and their own narrative. This practice allows the designer-creator to explore contrasts, textures, and unique symbolism, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. The result is signature pieces, full of personality, that break with conventional aesthetic standards and provoke reflection on consumption, disposal, memory, and meaning.

We hope the exhibition inspires new ways of making, combined with a concern for environmental impact.

“The selected items from the Oscar Niemeyer Museum’s collection are rooted in a more or less traditional design philosophy.

That is precisely why they were placed in dialogue with the collection of upcycled furniture pieces.

By presenting the two design approaches side by side, visitors can perceive that there is no significant formal or stylistic difference between using conventional materials — such as wood, plastic, or leather — and working with ‘used’ or recycled materials.

This deliberate juxtaposition aims to encourage a deeper understanding and appreciation of the aesthetics behind the PURE GOLD items.”

The exhibition "PURE GOLD – UPCYCLED! UPGRADED!" is a thought-provoking collection of works that unites 53 designers from various countries in a shared universal reflection: humanity's relationship with nature. A total of 76 works are presented in Room 2 of the MON. It is an exhibition by ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. in cooperation with the Oscar Niemeyer Museum and the Goethe-Institut São Paulo. The concept and conception were conceived by Volker Albus, a professor at the University of Arts and Design in Karlsruhe, Germany. The Latin American conceptualization was created by researcher and design historian Adélia Borges.

Bulky trash, waste, cheap materials: pure gold! 

At least in the eyes of many active designers. PURE GOLD – UPCYCLED! UPGRADED! explores the subject of rubbish and presents approaches to using existing trash to create valuable products. 

Global industrialisation and ever greater levels of consumption make upcycling an urgent matter, and ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) is therefore addressing this issue in a design exhibition, a platform, workshops and conferences. The cornerstones of this project are ethics, responsibility, internationalisation and co-creation. 

The PURE GOLD exhibition consists of two complementary parts: the physical and material exhibition and the virtual platform as a space for dialogue, discussion and the storage of knowledge. 

The materials used in the presented examples are nearly all easily available anywhere and more or less “free” – and yet they are often seen as trash with little value. The same is true for the techniques used to rework them, the artisanal knowhow that in many cases is based on traditional methods and bears the stain of the backward. 

The aim of our exhibition is to disarm all the bad names that reuse has, and to achieve a new notion of raw materials and thus also a new appreciation of these products. 

Working with seven curators from Europe, Latin America, North Africa and the Near East, East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, ifa has brought together 76 exhibits and a total of 53 designers for the exhibition, where they present added value and appreciation within many diverse contexts. 

The workshops that take place at the international touring exhibition venues with local designer and maker scenes offer results in the shape of instructables on the platform, as a further level for discussion and knowledge. Further information and materials on the workshop themes will be added. 

At every venue of the tour, ifa also invites local designers to show their works together with PURE GOLD.

Tábuas antigas clareadas, envernizadas e tingidas, ou cortadas, provenientes de madeireiras ou lojas de materiais de construção e bricolagem. Tábuas curtas e longas, largas e estreitas são montadas como estão, entre três, quatro ou cinco suportes de alumínio fundido e depois unidas mecanicamente para formar mesas. Especiais e sempre únicas

Photography: Marjan Van Aubel  - James Michael Shaw

Sawdust is actually a powder with no defined shape. When added to resin, this mixture transforms into a moldable, highly durable wood foam. On one side, it's smoothed to form seats and backrests, and on the other, it's molded into rounded, amorphous shapes that are placed and fixed between the bars.

Marjan van Aubel (RU/HOL) & James Michael Shaw (RU)

The inspiration came from leftover steel bars on construction sites. The bars are inexpensive and strong, and have a linear structure.

Flip-flops. One sole, one V-shaped strap. That's it. And therefore very cheap. Worn on the beach and near the water, where they are often left behind, carried by the current, and then brought back. Then they are collected, glued, and cut into the shapes of lamps, baskets, and small pieces of furniture.

The product is made using the traditional multi-layered fabric shoemaking process—an ancient Chinese craft. The technique relies on layers of cotton and uses emulsion to harden, followed by sewing with linen thread. However, this design uses smooth, skin-friendly surface textures to replace the original rough fabrics, making the chair more practical.

Pure Gold

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With each new exhibition, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum invites its public to be surprised. This time, Mexican artist Gabriel de la Mora challenges our gaze and perception with his paintings, installations and sculptures made from unusual, discarded items. 

Nothing in his intense and extensive work is obvious. This includes everything from the peculiar materials he uses to the execution processes and inspiration. Everything is the result of an insight into human nature, its feelings and sensations. 

In his creative process, he transforms found objects into raw material for unique works of art, evoking the concept of ready-made. There is always a message, addressing sustainability, the passage of time and the cycle of life, translated into works full of beauty and movement.

Upon entering the exhibition room, the public is confronted not only with works of art, but with a proposal to create new meanings. By discussing universal environmental issues, he makes us realize the many possibilities that art can take on. 

The result, although the result of a process of research and study, with great technical complexity, leaves no room for predictability and sounds intuitive. We are challenged to perceive something beyond the works. And that's what this exhibition invites us to do.

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika
CEO of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum

MON holds exhibition by Mexican Gabriel de la Mora

The exhibition “Veemente”, by the Mexican artist Gabriel de la Mora, is the Oscar Niemeyer Museum's (MON) newest project. The show, on display in Room 1 from May 8th, is curated by Marcello Dantas. There are 70 works, including installations, canvases with mixed techniques and sculptures, most produced between 2000 and 2025. 

The set shows not only the artist's aesthetic and its evolution, but also the diversity and peculiarity of the materials used, which go beyond traditional supports and pigments. In his creative process, he transforms found objects into raw material for unique works of art, evoking the concept of ready-made.

Gabriel de la Mora's practice involves an investigation into materials, exploring the physical and conceptual limits of a process of collection and reconstruction. At first glance, his works may seem abstract, sculptural or even minimalist. However, a closer look reveals that nothing is as it seems. De la Mora creates new and extraordinary surfaces that deconstruct the boundaries between different artistic languages.

His works are made up of unexpected elements: strands of hair, fragments of mirrors, eggshells, shoe soles, butterfly wings and other traces of everyday life. His technique denotes an almost obsessive process that transforms the raw material into new shapes, patterns and textures. The continuous repetition of the artisanal gesture - sometimes restorative, sometimes destructive - reveals a method that challenges the viewer's visual and sensory experience.

Gabriel de la Mora was born in Mexico in 1968 and surprised the art world by treating any material as an object of interest and creative power. His work aims to assign new symbolic and aesthetic values to the banal. As a collector of fragments of everyday life, he shows an unlimited fascination with the remnants of existence, putting together a puzzle that never existed.

This obsession with repetition and reconstruction is what defines the vehemence of his practice. In an exhaustive process, he seeks a visual expression that can only emerge from the infinite persistence of the gesture. 

The exhibition's expography reflects the artist's material obsessiveness by proposing an expanded sensory experience. At the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba, a 400 m² room is filled with his works, while a large central table allows visitors to explore the materials of his creations.

The role of art is to transform the value of things - symbolic, material or imaginary. "Veemente" is an equation of visual and tactile perceptions. By allowing the public to interact with the materials and experiment with the limits of repetition and obsession, the exhibition invites each visitor to experience, in an intimate and sensory way, the logic of an artist who turns waste into visual poetry.

820 Fragments of Hypolimnas pandarus butterfly wings on museum cardboard
30 x 30 x 2 cm
Simões de Assis Gallery

Wooden sticks
28.6 x 22.3 x 15 cm
Private collection

Electronic panels on museum paper
41 x 35 x 4 cm
Private collection

Dust collected in the artist's studio
10 x 10 x 10 cm
Private collection

Acrylic on peacock feathers on museum cardboard
30 x 30 x 4 cm
Private collection

The exhibition “Veemente”, by the Mexican artist Gabriel de la Mora, is the Oscar Niemeyer Museum's (MON) newest project. The exhibition will open on May 8 in Room 1, curated by Marcello Dantas.

There are 70 works, including installations, canvases with mixed techniques and sculptures, most produced between 2000 and 2025. The set shows not only the artist's aesthetic and its evolution, but also the diversity and peculiarity of the materials used, which go beyond traditional supports and pigments. 

"Gabriel de la Mora's art provokes a fundamental reflection on our time and invites us to reframe the ordinary, to look more closely at what we have discarded or forgotten," says the Secretary of State for Culture, Luciana Casagrande Pereira. "It's an exhibition that dialogues with contemporary themes and reinforces MON's commitment to bringing the public powerful experiences connected to global art discussions."

MON's director Juliana Vosnika says that the artist challenges our gaze and perception with his paintings, installations and sculptures made from unusual, discarded items. "Nothing in his intense and extensive work is obvious. Everything is the result of an insight into human nature, its feelings and sensations," she says. 

In the process of creation, the artist transforms found objects into raw material for unique works of art, evoking the concept of ready-made. "There is always a message, addressing sustainability, the passage of time and the cycle of life, translated into works full of beauty and movement," says Juliana.

Curator Marcello Dantas explains that Gabriel de la Mora's practice involves an investigation into materials, exploring the physical and conceptual limits of a process of collection and reconstruction. "At first glance, his works may seem abstract, sculptural or even minimalist. However, a closer look reveals that nothing is as it seems," says Dantas. 

"His works are made up of unexpected elements: strands of hair, fragments of mirrors, eggshells, shoe soles, butterfly wings and other traces of everyday life," says the curator. "His technique denotes an almost obsessive process that transforms the raw material into new shapes, patterns and textures. The continuous repetition of the artisanal gesture - sometimes restorative, sometimes destructive - reveals a method that challenges the viewer's visual and sensory experience," he says.

Marcello Dantas is an award-winning curator who has worked extensively in Brazil and abroad. He works on the border between art and technology, producing exhibitions and multiple projects that provide immersive experiences through the senses and perception. In recent years, he has worked on the design of several museums, such as the Museum of the Portuguese Language, Japan House (SP), Museum of Nature (PI), Museum of the City of Manaus, Museum of the People from Sergipe (Aracaju, SE), Museum of the Caribbean and the Carnival Museum (Barranquilla, Colombia). He has held solo exhibitions of some of the world's most important names in contemporary art, such as Ai Weiwei, Anish Kapoor, Laurie Anderson, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Rebecca Horn and Tunga. He was also the artistic director of the Brazil Pavilion at Expo Shanghai 2010, the Brazil Pavilion at Rio+20 and the Pelé Station in Berlin for the 2006 World Cup.

Born in 1968 in Mexico City, where he lives and works, Gabriel de La Mora has a degree in Architecture from the University Anáhuac del Norte and has a master's degree in painting from the Pratt Institute in New York. He focuses his artistic practice on the use and reuse of discarded or obsolete objects, which seem to have completed their useful life. More interested in the deconstruction and fragmentation of an object or material over time, he bets on reconstruction from practices based on the passage of time and processes, echoing the ready-made concept.

Veemente - Gabriel de la Mora

MON holds an exhibition of African art with pieces recently incorporated into its collection

The exhibition "Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent", held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, presented by Copel and made possible by the government of the State of Paraná, can be seen by the public from August 31 in Room 4. It is a selection of the significant donation made by the Ivani and Jorge Yunes Collection (CIJY) to the MON.

There are approximately 1,700 works from one of the most significant collections of African art objects from the 20th century, which now belong to the Oscar Niemeyer Museum collection and, consequently, to the State of Paraná.

Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent

“Turn a tree into firewood and it will burn; but it will never give you flowers and fruit again.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Bengali poet

The ancient metaphor of fertility related to the vital force and potency of trees, with their deep roots, their stem as a foundation, their ramifications as unfoldings of themselves, their legacy as symbolic flowers and fruits, was never more adequate as to be applied to the permanent links with our Mother Africa. If we then think of the metaphors of the gigantic baobab tree, from the more severe historical references associated with slavery by the so-called “tree of oblivion” to the milder ones, such as the famous tree in the book The Little Prince, the lessons arising therefrom would be analogous: “You become eternally responsible for what you captivate”, as Saint-Exupéry said.

If artistic expressions arise from the senses, the legacy of civilizations arises from the hands; and how beautiful are the manifestations of peoples, how beautiful are the arts of Africa! The love and yearning for the beautiful, the love and fear of nature and the gods and the fearless appreciation of civilization were so dear to African nations that they indistinctly distributed and reputed all aspects of existence, contradictory or not, some form of artistic expression.

The arts demarcate the forms of a time. The long-term exhibition “Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent” thus presents one of the essential points of the transition in the development of older African arts, since their withdrawal from the continent and the subsequent decontextualization of their intrinsic meanings, seen in the modern and contemporary world from an emphasis on their artistic forms. Previously restricted to European museums as objects of so-called traditional millenary cultures, today the works bequeathed from Africa have been able to conform to today's artistic work, offering the so-called “traditional contemporary African art” to the whole world, as it is known by specialists. These works are instruments of recent and authentic modernization of African popular arts or even modern reproductions of ancient pieces destined mainly for emerging markets in the tropics.

Strengthening institutional ties, the Oscar Niemeyer Museum (MON) received this important donation of African works from the Ivani and Jorge Yunes Collection (CIJY). Over more than fifty years, the couple has acquired works that span five continents. This donation includes around 1700 objects from Africa: masks, statuettes, busts, miniatures, everyday objects, musical instruments and a large number of other pieces. In a positive way, they are now part of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum collection, which we congratulate for having taken this opportune step, enriching its collection and, at the same time, the entire African legacy in Paraná and Brazil. We invite everyone to take an active part in this immersion in African art, observing its forms in what they themselves may surprise and allow an equivalent enjoyment to others in the artistic universe, without watertight determinations, taking this dialogue a step further. 

From the great tree of Africa, multiple fruits and new legacies were generated. It was no coincidence that, like most sub-Saharan peoples, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, the Mayans, the Incas, the Aztecs and basically all the great civilizations developed a culture of wearing masks and made representations in sculpture . With the exhibition of objects from such different cultural heritages, we find here an important point in common: within the museum, these arts are elevated to the same artistic platform, equaling African art to the level of world art. Here is a way to honor the visual ancestry of the past and to open up the new plantings, routes and perspectives of this art in the future.

Renato Araújo da Silva
Curator and Specialist in African Art

The exhibition “Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent”, held by the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, presented by Copel, can be seen by the public from August 26th, in Room 4. It is an excerpt from the great donation made by the Ivani and Jorge Collection Yunes (CIJY) to MON.

"The arrival of the African art collection is part of a consolidation process of MON's frame of reference. It establishes as a differential of the institution to primarily collect Brazilian and Paraná art and expand its non-Eurocentric look to Latin American, Asian and African art," explains Juliana Vosnika, director-president of MON. "We are constantly seeking to increase the collection because that is the soul of a museum, its essence," she says.

Juliana recalls that, in 2018, MON was the museum chosen for its technical conditions, management capacity, and credibility to receive a donation of almost 3,000 works of Asian art. Donated by diplomat and professor Fausto Godoy and coming from several countries of that continent, part of the works can be seen by MON visitors in the exhibition "Asia: the Earth, the Men, the Gods" in Room 5.

The largest art museum in Latin America inbuilt area, with 35,000 square meters, MON has tripled its collection in recent years. Since it opened in 2002 and until 2015, MON had about 3,000 works of art. Today, it has more than 9,300 works in its collection.

According to the curator of the exhibition "Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent," Renato Araújo da Silva, the works donated to MON were acquired over more than 50 years by the couple Ivani and Jorge Yunes, owners of one of the largest art collections in Brazil.

"With the exhibition of objects from such distinct cultural heritages, we find here an important common point: within the Museum, these arts are elevated to the same artistic platform, equaling African art to the level of world art," he says. "Here is a way to honor the visual ancestry of the past and to open the new plantings, routes, and perspectives of this art in the future," comments Renato.

The exhibition includes masks, sculptures, bronze busts and heads, metal miniatures, everyday objects, and musical instruments.

The works come from countries like the Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique, among others.

Renato Araújo da Silva is a historian in Philosophy from the University of São Paulo and coauthor, among other published works, of the book "Africa in Arts." Curator and researcher, he has worked at the Afro Museum and held other exhibitions in museums, such as the Sacred Art Museum of São Paulo.

"Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent”
Room 4

folder-africa-en.pdf

ÁFRICA - EXPRESSÕES ARTÍSTICAS DE UM CONTINENTE

The exhibition “Africa, Artistic Expressions of a Continent” is a part of the donation of approximately 1,700 pieces of contemporary African art, from the partnership between MON and the Ivani and Jorge Yunes Collection. Watch a message from the exhibition's curator, Renato Araújo, and visit Room 4 at MON. Exhibition presented by COPEL@copel_energia. #ArteAfricana#MuseuOscarNiemeyer

África, Artistic Expressions of a Continent at MON!

África, Expressões Artísticas de um Continente no MON!

África, Expressões Artísticas de Um Continente. O nascer de um novo legado para a arte, para você.  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀  Em cartaz na Sala 4 do Museu Oscar Niemeyer.  ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀  Exposição apresentada pela COPEL @copel_energia. #MuseuOscarNiemeyer#ÁfricaNoMON

#emcartaz | África, Expressões Artísticas de Um Continente

#emcartaz | África, Expressões Artísticas de Um Continente

MON is alongside major museums in Brazil and around the world on the Google Arts & Culture platform. Visit our exhibitions in virtual format.

Learn more about this exhibition on the Google Arts & Culture platform.

For the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, art and artists from Paraná play an important role and are always present in exhibitions and in the institution's permanent collection.

Here, visitors will be able to see a cross-section of Curitiba artist Teca Sandrini's work, from the 1960s to the present day. Her exhibition "Eterno Feminino", held by MON, brings together more than 100 paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. 

With great sensitivity, she portrays women in different ways, in different contexts and times, as well as their feelings, sensations and emotions.

Artists often give clues, through their work, about the way they see life. Teca has always been an attentive observer of the world around her, which is clear, implicitly and explicitly, in her work. 

The result is a vast production, which has already been presented in cities throughout Brazil and the world and is part of various collections. 

Museums are living spaces of knowledge whose mission is to promote a constant dialog between artists and the public. By bringing this artist's exhibition to the locals and to all visitors, MON provides belonging and appreciation of local culture.

Juliana Vellozo Almeida Vosnika
CEO of the Oscar Niemeyer Museum

- Teca Sandrini was born on April 9th in Curitiba. Daughter of Stella Braga and José Ernesto Erichsen Pereira.

- She joined the school Colégio Nossa Senhora de Sion.

- She joined Colégio São José, where she finished high school.

- She began attending the free painting course run by Guido Viaro, who kept his studio in the attic of the Paraná School of Music and Fine Arts (EMBAP) in Curitiba. 

- She joined the painting course at EMBAP.

- She won an award at the 9th Salon of Plastic Arts for New People, organized by the Paraná Department of Education and Culture, in Curitiba. 

“Eterno Feminino” is a selection of the work of Curitiba-based artist Teca Sandrini, from the 1960s to the present day, curated by Maria José Justino, on display in Sala 7. The paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures present three phases of her career: “Polacas”, “Fragmentos” and “Manchas”. The first addresses signs of domestic life by showing women doing their daily chores. In the “Fragmentos” phase, flirting with surrealism and abstraction, the focus is on drawers and chairs. In the most recent phase, “Manchas”, the artist plays with shapes.

On view exhibition

Afghanistan

Pure Gold

Veemente

Africa

Eterno Feminino

Tracks and Traces

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