An apparent fragility shapes the design of the set built for the exhibition Taib: A History of the Theater, about the Brazilian Yiddish Art Theater (Teatro de Arte Israelita Brasileiro), founded in 1960 and built in the basement of Casa do Povo, a cultural center in Bom Retiro, São Paulo. With exhibition design by the collective Goma Oficina — a transdisciplinary design, architecture, and art association — the theater is staged on the first floor, presenting the powerful history of survival and re-existence of Jewish poetry despite the persecution and violence of the Nazi regime until the end of World War II.
Upon entering, one finds the space occupied by red leather theater benches and curtains of the same color suspended by ropes, pulleys, and clamps that wrap around and adapt to the existing structure of the building. In this large hall, a metalanguage is established: theater staging itself—the very medium that has always supported staging. Since it represents itself, what language does it speak? What body does it dress and perform in? The theater, in turn, while seemingly fragile — its social, psychological, and political structures having been severely shaken by the Shoah, the genocide of the Jewish people in the 20th century — takes root in this new space as a timeless vehicle for the lives that open, community-oriented, leftist, and fundamentally collective art allows us to experience.
The enduring Taib allows itself to be imagined through the open structures of Casa do Povo, featuring architecture by Ernest Carvalho Mange from the 1920s, a basement designed by Jorge Wilheim to house the theater in 1960, and exhibition design by Goma Oficina in 2023. Spaces blur temporally and spatially as the exhibition design permeates and crosses two existing areas: the large hall for collective activation — featuring records of meetings and other occupations — and the library and archive containing historical documents whose multiple narratives still allow new stories to be retold, constructing in the imagination the theater's original basement space, which is inaccessible during the exhibition.
The material support for this set is provided by the triangulation of ropes that wrap around the building's structure and sustain a series of orthogonally crossed aluminum bars: a grid hoisted by a mobile truss system, reminiscent of theatrical stage machinery. In the next layer, curved tracks attached to the grid lend the space the fluidity seen in the curtains of various shades of red and textures, which hover over a palimpsest floor of parquet and wood planks showing different periods of alteration. The set also benefited from the work of a group of seamstresses and Latin American immigrant women who joined the curtains, working within the very space shared by the exhibition. Around them, Taib's original red leather armchairs occupy the space freely, revealing a different arrangement with each visit, raising questions and offering clues, little by little, to the visibility of these multiple eras.
Built from materials reused from other exhibitions, smaller structures inside the curtained enclosure resemble broom handles connected by metal elbows — a structured, grid-like framework that displays the archival study of the 1960s theater. Texts, videos, photos, and sounds blend with the space itself, which speaks of its own history, such as black-and-white photographs of the theater's construction — or is it a premonition of the ruins it would become? Other productions featured in the exhibition include A Dream of Goldfaden, shown through a small photograph of the expressionist-style set staged at the Municipal Theater of São Paulo in 1948, and Factory, a 1979 play depicting the labor struggle of ceramic workers in the same city. The archive also includes photographs and promotional posters of the Scheiffer Choir, highlighting an age and gender diversity unusual for the time.
Allowing enough time for the exhibition layout to reveal itself, one notices the light in the space subtly shifting during the transition to twilight: an orange hue takes the space by surprise as dusk falls. Orange spotlights become visible, illuminating the building's structure and cradling those stories for the present day.
Ultimately, the exhibition design prompts a self-reflection through something both strange and familiar, which inspires this text. A presentation is built not only on appearances but on displacements — spatial, temporal, narrative — inducing a form of time travel and a state of uncertainty regarding what is seen and experienced. After all, what is part of the exhibition and what is not? What era are we in — present, future, or past? The empty spaces, left for activation or rest, are essential gaps that simulate reality and, in doing so, invite further reflection and new developments. Perhaps this is the shift, the detour of exhibition design (and indeed, of theater): to simulate the fiction of reality so powerfully that it becomes reality itself, as real as any other, deepening curiosity for the site and allowing new audiences to stage, retell, transform, and celebrate this living artistic space for the present day: a time pregnant with other times.
The exhibition “TAIB: A History of the Theater” was produced by Goma Oficina, conceived by Casa do Povo, and collectively curated by Casa do Povo, Christian Salmeron (Goma Oficina), Maria Livia Goes, and Nina Hotimsky. The exhibition design was created by Christian Salmeron, Maria Cau Levy, Vitor Pena, and Gabriela Toral (Goma Oficina), with production by Lauro Rocha and Paula Marujo (Goma Oficina). The full credits can be found on the Casa do Povo website.
Exhibition: TAIB, A History of the Theater
Address: Casa do Povo. Rua Três Rios, 252 - Bom Retiro, São Paulo
Hours: June 15 to August 19. Tuesday to Saturday, 11 AM to 7 PM
Closing event: August 19, at 4 PM. Book launch and distribution of the TAIB book, followed by a closing talk with the organizers of the exhibition and book.
This article was written by Mariana Meneguetti. The translation is powered by AI.
