Martius Revisited / Martius Revisitado is a collaborative counter-archiving project between Brazil and Germany published by Frauke Zabel and Laura Kemmer.
Contributors: Anita Ekman, Christian Ernst, Claudilene Pedrosa Caldas, Frauke Zabel, Juarez Lopez da Silva, João Paulo Tukano, Karen Macknow Lisboa, Laura Kemmer, Luciana Villas Bôas, Luis Gabriel Ferreira da Silva and Micheliny Verunschk. Translated by Laura Kemmer and Azri Pessoa. Printed on Fedrigoni Arena White Rough by Printmedienwerk, Nuremberg. DIN A5 edition of 85 in German and Portuguese.
Contributors: Anita Ekman, Christian Ernst, Claudilene Pedrosa Caldas, Frauke Zabel, Juarez Lopez da Silva, João Paulo Tukano, Karen Macknow Lisboa, Laura Kemmer, Luciana Villas Bôas, Luis Gabriel Ferreira da Silva and Micheliny Verunschk. Translated by Laura Kemmer and Azri Pessoa. Printed on Fedrigoni Arena White Rough by Printmedienwerk, Nuremberg. DIN A5 edition of 85 in German and Portuguese.
Martius Revisited / Martius Revisitado
2026 | Editorial
Lehrstuhl Deutschland-Brasilien für Humanwissenschaften und Nachhaltigkeit (DAAD), Universidade de São Paulo
“The 19th-century journey to Brazil by natural scientists Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius and Johann Baptist von Spix produced systems of knowledge that continue to structure ecological, cultural, and political imaginations between Brazil and Europe to this day. Martius Revisited takes this legacy as its starting point to renegotiate archives, collections, and research as historically grown power structures.
In a collaborative dialogue between Munich and São Paulo, Martius Revisited explores a search for traces in public space, using artistic and research methods such as city walks, storytelling, and mapping as practices of counter-archiving. The methods aim to open up spaces in order to reveal, through shifts in perspective and dialogue, the gaps, omissions, and epistemic violence that continue to shape our view of nature and culture to this day.
Following a series of workshops and a symposium at the University of São Paulo, the project brings together contributions from indigenous authors, artists, scientists, and students in a zine. The contributions create a polyphonic structure that opposes closed narratives. Martius Revisited sees itself as an ongoing practice of counter-archiving and an open constellation, developing an outlook on questions of healing and reparation in dealing with colonial collections — from decidedly decolonial and feminist perspectives.”
Laura Kemmer, Frauke Zabel