Weekly Artist Feature | Luana Vitra

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Luana Vitra (b. 1995) is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist whose sculptures, installations, performances, and drawings transform raw minerals and industrial materials into spiritual, decolonial statements. Raised in a region shaped by iron mining and soot, and mentored by a carpenter father and poet mother, Vitra’s work explores the body’s relationship to landscape, ritual, and resistance.

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Click here to learn more about the artist →

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Vitra uses raw and industrial materials—iron, copper, clay, coal, soot, nails—to create sculptural forms that blur the lines between relic and ritual object. Her works often resemble amulets, weapons, or tools, invoking both protection and protest. Through these materials, she investigates the legacies of colonial extractivism and spiritual resilience, turning matter into a conduit for healing and ancestral communication.

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A trained sculptor and dancer, Vitra engages deeply with gesture and embodied knowledge. Her process is tactile and intuitive, treating each object as a living vessel that carries the weight of cultural, geological, and emotional histories. Whether assembling sculptural installations or performing site-specific rituals, Vitra’s work insists on the power of Black imagination, spiritual technologies, and the land to reframe narratives of violence, industry, and survival.

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Highlights: 

• Presented her first U.S. institutional solo show, “Amulets”, at SculptureCenter, New York (2025), transforming materials like iron, clay, and nails into objects of protection and ancestral memory.
• Her work was selected for the 35th São Paulo Biennial (2023) and the Sharjah Biennial 16 (2025)
• Awarded the PIPA Prize (2023), one of Brazil’s most important contemporary art prizes, recognizing emerging and mid-career artists who challenge social and cultural norms.
• Received the Prince Claus Seed Award (2022), supporting artists whose practices contribute to social justice, cultural resilience, and community healing.
• She graduated with a BFA in Sculpture from the Guignard School of Art in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 2018, and trained in performance and movement at the Escola Livre de Artes (2014–2017).

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Current Exhibitions

“Luana Vitra: Amulets” – SculptureCenter, Long Island City, NY (May 1, 2025 – July 28, 2025)

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Luana Vitra’s first U.S. institutional solo exhibition featuring sculptural installations composed of iron, clay, sand, and fabric. These works reimagine tools and ritual objects as vessels of ancestral memory and resistance, exploring the spiritual and political potential of mineral materials.

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Are you in or near New York? Don’t miss this — Click here to get details and plan your visit today! →

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Selected Past Exhibitions

• “The beads of my rosary are artillery bullets” – Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, Netherlands (September 20, 2024 – April 27, 2025)
• “Mineral Rising” – Mendes Wood DM, New York, NY (April 30 – June 8, 2024)
• “Six Artists” – Mendes Wood DM, New York, NY (February 3 – March 5, 2023) (group exhibition)
• “Unfinished Monument” – Auroras, São Paulo, Brazil (2022) (group exhibition)

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Works

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