In 2021, ICOM (International Council of Museums) carried out a survey with museum professionals and audiences on the challenges in times of Covid-19, indicating the aspirations of museum professionals to overcome this moment marked by challenges of work in the sector.
In line with these aspirations, the contest “Revealing Territories” – collectively prepared by the team at the Museum of the City of São Paulo – sought to find new meanings from external perspectives. The awards aimed at selecting projects, in the modalities of documentary and audiovisual photography, that recorded the confrontation of the pandemic by vulnerable social actors who experience this São Paulo reality in its various facets.
The works presented permeate the different areas of São Paulo, highlighting contexts such as those of people in situations of social vulnerability, the LGBTQIA+ population, delivery workers through apps, peripheries, isolation, among others. The 14 awarded projects were incorporated into the Photographic Collection of the Museum of the City of São Paulo.
For the visual identity of the exhibition of selected works, we created a sign from individual blocks that, together, dialogue with the collective aspect of the project. The rectangular format refers to a kind of window through which it was possible to glimpse the horizon, and the isolated letters relate to the necessary distance throughout the entire pandemic period.
We also created a modular system for captions and texts authored by the people contemplated, which had different natures and characteristics, adopting a color for each participant. In addition, we collaborated with the curatorship and expography of the exhibition based on the final selection of works, their layout and the narrative present in the exhibition panels.
