The Acervo da Laje is a space of aesthetic and artistic memory in the peripheries of Salvador, Bahia. It occupies two houses in the neighbourhood of São João do Cabrito, Plataforma, an area long seen as dangerous due to poverty and violence. The story of the Acervo da Laje (“Rooftop” Collection) began in 2011, when educator José Eduardo Ferreira Santos, together with photographer Marco Illuminati, began mapping artists from the area known as Subúrbio Ferroviário for his postdoctoral research. 

Born in this suburb of Salvador, which is distributed into 15 districts that suffer from high rates of violence and disregard by public authorities, the researcher was impressed with the art he saw being made there and decided to bring the works together in a single space. The Acervo da Laje is currently divided between two neighboring houses in the Plataforma district. In addition to books, recordings, newspapers and objects that help tell the community’s story, work by local artists, as well as those from other districts on the city’s periphery, such as Zaca Oliveira, Ray Bahia, Prentice, Perinho Santana, Almiro Borges, Isa Amaral and Indiano Carioca, is also on permanent display.

The Acervo study group planned, within the scope of the project, to point out new conceptions of the notion of museum, capable of addressing racial and territorial relations in a situated and complex way, having as a starting point an insurgent institution, which is the Acervo da Laje. Throughout this year, the group has been meeting and working on various projects together. One of the main objectives of this intergenerational group is to strengthen the museum's internal capacities: how curatorship, museum leadership and exhibition development are stimulated by the involvement of young people from the neighboring district of São João do Cabrito, in Salvador's Subúrbio Ferroviário. The study group has been actively working on creating an inventory of the collections held by the Acervo da Laje and has been involved with the numerous exhibitions throughout Brazil to which the Acervo's collection has traveled.

Acervo da Laje study group members

Vilma Soares Ferreira Santos educator and co-founder of Acervo da Laje, José Eduardo Ferreira Santos educator and co-founder of Acervo da Laje, Carol Souza student of architecture and urbanism, Fabrício Cumming actor and cultural producer, Pablo Lemos student of law and art history