Link is a word that means connection, bond, or linkage. It is typically a term used in the field of technology, especially in Computer Science, to designate a hyperlink. 

Within the context of the LINK 2021 Exhibition this term can be understood within a broader perspective. In addition to its definition, based only in the environment of technology, within the topological space of the exhibition the term takes on another meaning: the inseparable link between research and creative practice.

It is within this fabric that the LINK 2021 showcase is designed, this year being the third version of the event; putting on stage projects, works, creative processes and experiments that result, from the dialogue of the academic research, in the advancement of different fields of knowledge. In this context, we understand that the exhibition is also a research exercise as it creates links and connections, among other possibilities, with the diversity of the projects presented.

From the point of view of curatorial practices per se, the exhibition is designed as a fabric, woven within the network of culture, in dialogue with the media and moving through new means of circulation and exhibitions circuits. Obviously, the practice of using the network to house curators is not a recent phenomenon. Already in the 70s and 80s we found similar initiatives such as postal art and videotext curatorship. During the 2000s, especially with the advent of web 2.0, the use of the internet started to host diverse artistic and curatorial proposals, but more recently, the online environment in fact has become an unprecedented space for the creation and dissemination of art and culture.

Within this perspective, LINK 2021 is not only a space for the exhibition of works, but an expansive territory that is often connected with the personal pages and websites of artists and designers that integrate the curatorial mesh, allowing a more expanded look at their productions.

The exhibition presents 43 works by artists and designers from countries like Brazil, Aotearoa New Zealand, that are articulated in different languages from seven main links: Urgency, Body and Memory, Nature, Technology and Culture, Poetic Environments, Experimentations, Educational Methodologies and Gazes. In addition to being understood as fixed categories, these links are crossed by dialogue, bringing together the works that weave the curatorial fabric.

In Urgency, we find projects that bring up urgent social and political themes such as racism, the COVID-19 pandemic and social conflicts. In Body and Memory, we are invited to access poetics that incorporate the dimension of memory and personal and affective narratives. The environmental crisis, the relationship between nature, biology, and technology, as well as the construction of possible futures are presented in Nature, Technology and Culture. In Poetic Environments, we are led to browse collective exhibition proposals and dreamlike and immersive spaces. The experimentation with image and sound in Experimentations, the use of photography as a narrative resource in Gazes and the projects that make up Educational Methodologies and Projects complete the exhibition, offering a plural and broad look at the relationship between research and creative practice.