Eleven artists from Morro do Santo Amaro open a free exhibition at Futuros – Arte e Tecnologia on Feb. 25, showing raw creative processes with AI, 3D printing, and e-waste.
The favela as a launching pad
Starting February 25, the exhibition “VAI TOMANDO!” opens at Futuros – Arte e Tecnologia, a cultural center in the Flamengo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Free and open to the public, the show brings together eleven artists from the 2050 Arts, Innovation and Technology Lab, based on the Morro do Santo Amaro hill in Rio’s South Zone.
The works on display were developed during the UPLOAD artistic residency, which began in 2025. Over the course of the program, participants visited 68 exhibitions and 23 museums across Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo — an immersion that fed directly into their creative output.
Technology as poetic language
The artists work with artificial intelligence, painting, 3D printing and scanning, generative art, digital modeling, and physical and electronic waste. Each piece tells an intimate story: community life, youth, faith, ancestry, and the everyday challenges of life in the favela.
“VAI TOMANDO!” is deliberately unfinished — that is its point. The exhibition makes creative processes visible while they are still in motion. A second show, scheduled for May at the same venue, will present the final works.
Highlights from the show
Cety Soledade presents the mask “Sankofa Elétrica” and the sculpture “O Mensageiro”, both built entirely from electronic waste — power plugs, cables, wires, chargers, and metallic tape. His research examines the irregular disposal of e-waste and its far-reaching environmental and social consequences.
Visual artist Rxbisco, born and raised on Morro do Santo Amaro, shows two striking paintings. ‘Aura, versículo de um neguin’ portrays the intimate journey of a Black man from the favela learning to stand firm while surviving. ‘Di Raça’ explores the forced early maturity of a young favela resident, echoing rapper Emicida’s haunting question: “What dies at the end of the month — our money or our hope?”
It has been an immeasurable pleasure to work and learn alongside the team of artists at the 2050 Arts, Innovation and Technology Lab. As a curator, my role has been — and continues to be — to follow individual and collective artistic processes, mediate knowledge from the art world, and expand possibilities for professional inclusion in this field. I see art and technology as fields that meet and amplify each other in a time of intense connection with people and with the world. — Leonardo Moraes, curator of the UPLOAD residency and exhibitions
About the 2050 collective
Founded in 2022, 2050 is a creative lab built by artists from the communities of Santo Amaro, Cidade de Deus, Senador Camará, and Praça Seca. The collective uses artificial intelligence, peripheral culture, and new technologies to create immersive experiences, artistic productions, and educational initiatives — always drawing from favela life to craft global narratives.
2050 is a collective achievement, built and imagined by many hands. A platform, a company, a movement, an idea of the future. We started at a table that became a door: that was the moment our pains and ambitions began to emerge. Today, we keep the movement going, still not knowing where it will lead. For me, 2050 is the unknown. — Gean Guilherme, artist
About the UPLOAD project
UPLOAD combines an artistic residency with exhibitions at Futuros – Arte e Tecnologia. Structured in two cycles — training and research first, then production and activation — the project fosters encounters between artists and cultural industry professionals, guided visits to collections and studios, and public debates on the intersections of art, life, and technology.
By reframing technologies as poetic tools, the 2050 collective asserts a deeply Brazilian inventiveness and a creative response to structural and everyday barriers. Through the Upload project, we have the opportunity to advance the careers of 2050’s artists and build a direct dialogue between Santo Amaro and Futuros – Arte e Tecnologia, reaffirming the cultural center’s commitment to supporting contemporary artistic languages that engage art and technology in a critical way. — Victor D’Almeida, culture manager at Instituto Futuros
The project is produced by Zucca Produções and co-produced by Futuros – Arte e Tecnologia and the 2050 Collective, through Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Culture Incentive Law (ISS Law), with sponsorship from Serede, Oi, Eletromidia, Rastro, Tahto, and the City of Rio de Janeiro/SMC.
2050 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/2050oficial/
Event details
Exhibition: ‘Vai Tomando’
Dates: February 25 – April 5, 2026
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Venue: Futuros – Arte e Tecnologia – Gallery 3
Address: Rua Dois de Dezembro, 63 – Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro
Free admission
Photo: Rxbisco / 2050, Press release
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