Exhibition "The City of Children", 15th 3M Exhibition at Villa-Lobos Park

São Paulo will host the 15th 3M Art ExhibitionThe event, which debuts at Villa-Lobos Park with the theme "The City of Children," will be a historic edition. For the first time in its history, the event will present the children's universe as its central axis, revealing the power of creative imagination as a tool for social construction. The concept proposes a reversal of perspective: looking at childhood not as a preparatory stage, but as a political and creative force capable of renewing urban life.

The works of 15th 3M Art Exhibition They weren't just designed to be observed. They invite children and adults to participate, occupy, and transform the spaces. Swinging, sliding, crossing, jumping, touching, negotiating, and imagining are some of the actions that are part of the experiences proposed by the artists with their creations.

The exhibition will present play as a way of thinking about the city and the relationships between people. Each artwork will create an encounter situation in which children and adults can experience other ways of sharing spaces, making decisions, listening, and building collectively.

Works in the final stages of preparation and the artists

In "Class Suspended", Andrea Hygino, from Rio de Janeiro, will present school desks hung like swings and arranged in a circle. The object associated with education and discipline will be transformed into an invitation to movement, conversation, and collective experimentation.

In the unpublished work “Arcyria vulpicida amanita favolaschia”, signed by DALYsIn São Paulo, three slides connected by nets create a situation where children need to negotiate with each other the order and manner of playing, transforming the game into an experience of coexistence.

The artist Brazilian Castiel VitorinoThe artist, from Vitória, Espírito Santo, created the work "The Color of the Sun, of Secrets and of Discovery," in which two large semicircles covered in paintings and mirror mosaics form a space for playing, hiding, and reappearing. The reflections of visitors become part of the artwork itself.

From Belo Horizonte, the artist Isabela Prado For the exhibition in São Paulo, the artist created the work "Dreaming is Necessary," featuring concrete pipes pierced by blue shapes that evoke the hidden waters beneath the streets of the São Paulo capital. The installation invites children to imagine the rivers that continue to flow under the city.

The artist Juca FiisFrom Rio de Janeiro, the artist behind the artwork “Que Onda” (What a Wave!) creates two structures that collectively activate a jump rope, while percussion boxes allow other participants to create the rhythm. For the game to work, it's necessary to synchronize movements, listen, and negotiate with others.

Directly from Salvador, Romulo Vieira Conceição The artist is preparing for the exhibition the work "Junta," a suspended house inspired by treehouses, built from drawings of trees made by children. Inside, a round table transforms the space into a place for meeting, conversation, and deliberation.

Established as one of the most important landmarks of contemporary art in public spaces in Brazil, the 3M Art Show This year's exhibition is curated by Bernardo Mosqueira, with Ana Clara Simões Lopes as assistant curator. The aim is to highlight children as a powerful source of re-evaluation and renewal, expressing the transformative power of play as the pleasurable art of experimenting with alternative ways of life.

Play creates a territory where the real and the imaginary intertwine, producing a provisional form of order that teaches about arbitrariness in the world and the possibility of transforming it. Each shared rule, each round, and each negotiation inherent in a game teaches respect, agreement, common ground, the desire to win, the unimportance of defeats, and the importance of cooperation and coexistence.

By focusing on childhood, the exhibition argues for the urgency of listening to children in reinvention, recognizing that urban life exceeds its planned boundaries and can be constantly recreated by imagination, without limiting concepts and exclusively future-oriented projections. The emphasis is on highlighting how many childhood skills can contribute to the present, through interpretations and adaptations of play for real life.

“A 3M Art Show It is recognized for its artistic experimentation, promoting free access to contemporary art in public and high-traffic areas. It has become an educational tool for groups of young people who visit the event and has involved strategic partnerships with public schools to foster democratic culture. Throughout its editions, it has brought together established and emerging names from the national scene, always guided by urgent and relevant themes,” comments Marcela Ribeiro, director of Elo3, the company that conceived and produces the project. The exhibition is sponsored by 3M through the cultural incentive law.

15 Years of Public Art: A Journey of Transformation

Created in 2010 with the purpose of democratizing access to culture, the 3M Art Show She began her journey focused on digital art, occupying spaces such as Mackenzie University and the Latin America Memorial. Between 2012 and 2014, she consolidated her relevance during a three-year residency at the Tomie Ohtake Institute, under the curatorship of names such as Giselle Beiguelman and Paulo Miyada.

In 2017, the project underwent a historic transition: it dropped the word "digital" from its name and took contemporary artworks directly to the streets, occupying Largo da Batata. Since then, the exhibition has become a landmark of urban intervention, passing through iconic landmarks such as Ibirapuera Park, Augusta Park, and the bicentennial Luz Park.

Over the course of a decade and a half, the event has commissioned dozens of works by national and international artists, promoting direct dialogue between the public and contemporary art, completely free of charge.