There are many fragments of the personality of Carollina Lauriano scattered around your apartment. His story can be told through the choice of furniture found in São Paulo or through the books he brought back from a special trip to Buenos Aires. But to understand her deeply, to the point of reading her soul, you need to look at the walls of her apartment in Barra Funda, São Paulo.
Hanging there are works of art chosen by the curator that denote predilections and go far beyond aesthetics. They are sketches captured from ties that reveal his life mission: to dig deep until he finds jewels that are waiting for a light to shine.
Graduated in journalism and with a career in public relations agencies, focusing on the luxury and fashion market, Carollina had to work hard until she found a comfort zone that would allow her to dedicate herself to a great passion that grew even as a girl: art. .
“I like to mix so-called ‘popular’ art works with contemporary art, blurring the boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture.”
Carollina Lauriano, curator
“I was a typical creative kid, but I came from a difficult childhood, my mom worked two or three jobs to support two kids, so I didn’t have access to art. But at school, some teachers saw my interest and encouraged me; I entered this world through reading. The book gave me the ability to think about other realities: it was an escape and also a place of freedom.”
Restlessness has always accompanied her, but it became more evident over the years, as experience and maturity showed that it was time to seek fulfillment in other ways. In 2013, with Brazil experiencing a complex political moment, she watched her brother, Jaime Lauriano, a visual artist, bring to her life this context of youth claiming for rights.
“That shaped my perception of the world. I always wanted to bring this vision of plurality in some way, for example: questioning the pattern of influencers hired for the campaigns of the agency where I worked… However, everything was always blocked, I started to get very uncomfortable. I realized that this being denied was like denying my body in that space as well. I was the only black person in a leadership position, with my peers working in menial positions. And how lonely it is to make a change from yourself. I was there alone defending myself.”
Training in Research and Trend Analysis at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London) was the lever she needed to start her career as an independent curator, a title she has held since 2017.
In the years that followed, she was part of the Ateliê397 team, one of the main independent art spaces in the city of São Paulo, and was also dedicated to projects that include young women artists in the art market, as in the exhibition body beyond bodywhich discusses the queer body and female transsexuality, and also in The night will never fall asleep in our eyes (a reference to the poem by Conceição Evaristo), exhibition at Galeria Baró, which was the first to bring together 20 racialized artists in a commercial gallery.
“It was more than an exhibition, we professionalized these women, explaining the art market and building this bridge with gallery owners, respecting the particularities of each artist. You can’t treat a peripheral black artist the same as a middle-class white one.”
“I love being surrounded by beautiful things, as well as objects that have a history. My apartment is designed to be a pleasant place to be.”
Carollina Lauriano, curator
In fact, it was these art spaces that opened the eyes of the communicator to the neighborhood where she lives today, Barra Funda. Carollina moves around town according to the demands of the job. Her neighborhood houses, in addition to the curator’s current office, Usina Luis Maluf, an Artistic Residency space in which Carollina has worked, as well as Ateliê397.
“Barra Funda is, today, the seat of a new moment in São Paulo, the city is migratory and has that neighborhood being formed from artists who migrate and form communities. It was here that I found the ideal home, where I could share my workspace, my office, and my home. Although it is still very difficult to separate the two things”, he details about the apartment he has just moved into.
The ample space, of almost 100 m², is the way Carol always wanted it: with lots of natural light, quiet and with a balcony for the cats, Francisca and Eva, to catch some sun throughout the day.
In the living room, not only are the cane chairs mined, but also the Saarinen table: “I spent a long time digging; it’s a replica, but I didn’t want to put something new in, like a marble,” he explains. The George Nelson bench, below the TV, reveals the curator’s taste for design and decoration.
“I like furniture that comes with signs of use. There’s a stool, where the books are resting, which I found in the street and had it restored. I think I have this look to identify powers”, he laughs.
The difficulty of dividing work and personal life has its positive points. Just look at the care with which Carollina selected each of the works that accompany her in her routine at home, whether on happy days or on more challenging ones.
“I have an art collection that is based on my curatorial process, on what makes sense to me. I buy many more works
of women artists than men.”Carollina Lauriano, curator
“In my curatorships, I always end up going back to my past, to that place of lack. If I had had guidance, my career could have gone elsewhere, the stimulus would have shortened paths. That’s why education is so important to me,” she says, who has been coordinating the project for over two years. Refuge, an expanded artistic educational training for young teenagers who graduated from Fundação Casa. “There, we developed not only citizenship, but also the possibility for them to dream. Art is just a starting point.”
The excitement that transcends his expressions when talking about art leaves one certainty: the walls of the current address can already be prepared to receive new stories.