30th Youth Art Show (MAJ) breaks records with 402 submissions, awards three artists

The 30th edition of the Mostra de Arte da Juventude (MAJ), founded in 1989 in Ribeirão Preto, has made its first iteration in São Paulo at Sesc Consolação. Curators Luciara Ribeiro and André Pitol selected 40 artists and collectives from a record 402 submissions. The exhibition reflects the plurality of youth in the arts across different contexts and territories, featuring political, social, identity-based, poetic, and aesthetic questions. While historically focused on the Southeast, especially São Paulo, the MAJ has recently opened nationally, though it still shows strong representation from artists in the city's interior and periphery. This year, the curators reinterpreted the award criteria, shifting from rewarding the most 'well-resolved' works to incentivizing the completion of projects. Three artists were awarded: Rebeca Ramos from São Paulo, whose sculptures critique social inequality and use yellow to reference hunger as described by Carolina Maria de Jesus; Anderson Oli from João Pessoa, with a video rescuing memories of Rio's Complexo da Maré; and Roberval Borges from Teresina, who created a mural with 176 small mirrors. The exhibition runs until March 5 at Sesc Consolação in São Paulo with free admission.