Lina Bo Bardi: A Creative Improvisation

‘What is freedom to me?’ asks Isaac Julien in his new major exhibition at Tate Britain. Throughout his forty-year career, Julien has used filmmaking as a tool to bring underappreciated cultural figures into the public domain. These range from the writer, activist and abolitionist, Fredrick Douglass (1845-1895), to the prominent Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes (1901-1967). Video installations that span Julien’s career are shown on large screens throughout the exhibition space, designed by David Adjaye Architects. Viewers can explore the space freely as ‘mobile spectators’ to Julien’s interrogation of history, space and social justice. 

One of the creatives that Isaac Julien shines a light on is designer and architect, Lina Bo Bardi (1914 – 1992). Born in Italy and working across Brazil from 1946, Bardi’s work and impact on art, architecture and design has not been ‘fully acknowledged’ according to Julien. In his piece entitled ‘Lina Bo Bardi - A Marvellous Entanglement’ (2019), he makes ‘historical reparation through visual poetry’, highlighting the life and work of the architect by filming the piece across seven public buildings that Bo Bardi designed. 

Julien presents Bo Bardi (played by Academy Award-nominee Fernanda Montenegro and her daughter, Cannes-laureate actor Fernanda Torres) at different stages of her life and emphasises Bo Bardi’s belief in the importance of art, architecture, and design to culture. 

Bo Bardi’s modernist spaces are activated by dance and movement – a poetic gesture by Julien, recalling the architect’s constant improvisation with existing spaces and materials, her belief that architecture should keep up with the present needs of the community. Working with choreographer Zebrinha and the Balé Folclórico de Bahia, Julien centres a dance around the iconic wooden staircase that Bo Bardi designed for the Museum of Modern Art, Bahia. The design of the sweeping, swirling, staircase came from adapting the Brazilian techniques once used in the making of ox carts, Bo Bardi embracing (often out of economic necessity) traditional construction techniques to elevate her modernist structures. She was even known to have used off-cuts from the building of stage sets, adapting her work to suit the materials she had to hand. 

In featuring Bo Bardi in his exhibition ‘What Freedom is to Me’, Julien is telling his audience that Bardi’s life and work, not only deserve to be platformed in their own right – but she should also be considered as a major influence on art and culture. In her lifetime, Bo Bardi built a reputation for ‘acknowledging and responding to Afro-Brazilian histories of diaspora and the transatlantic slave trade’. Is it, then, any wonder why the idea of freedom plays such a role in Julien’s exploration of her work? 

There is an undeniable ‘freedom’ within her architectural designs – such as the vast concrete facades of the SESC Pompeia, punctuated by abstract window holes that are fitted with bold red shutters. 

These spaces in turn provide a stage for collaboration to take place between Julien and artists such as Brazilian art collective Araká in Bo Bardi’s Coaty Restaurant. This is further elevated by the sound scape that Spanish composer Maria de Alvear created that fills the exhibition room. 

The key to this posthumous collaboration with Bo Bardi lies in the quote that inspired the title of Julien's video. 

In Bo Bardi’s work, there is a freedom of time, a freedom of space and a freedom of history. It is not neat and clean cut, it is a ‘marvellous entanglement’ of style, material and use - a creative improvisation of design. 

Isaac Julien's video 'Lina Bo Bardi - A Marvellous Entanglement’ (2019) can be viewed at his new exhibition 'What Freedom Is To Me', at Tate Britain until 20 August 2023.

By Elise Nwokedi