The sculpture 'Encontros' is a new piece of public art created by Estudio Guto Requena. This work pays tribute to his hometown, Sorocaba, which in its original Tupi-Guarani language means 'broken land.'
The spiral circular form of the sculpture symbolizes the meeting, exchange, and crossroads of peoples who passed through this area. Sorocaba has the status of an indigenous land: the Tupi Tietes, Tupiniquins, and Guayaneses from Piratini, the Carijos from the fields of Curitiba, and the Guarani from Paranapanema traveled through this territory.
The work serves as a call to abandon the Eurocentric narrative that limits the history of indigenous peoples to the period before the arrival of colonizers. Understanding this presence is critically important for realizing how the colonization of Sorocaba and Brazil was heavily marked by the culture of the indigenous peoples, which continues to influence Brazilian culture to this day.
It is not accidental that the Sorocaba region was part of the Caminho do Peabiru—a network of pre-Columbian Indian trails crossing South America. This path connected the Atlantic coast with the Andean world, stretching approximately three thousand kilometers across the territories of present-day Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. It facilitated communication, trade, and knowledge exchange among indigenous peoples long before the arrival of Europeans. Its very name preserves this memory: in Tupi, 'pe' means path, and 'abiru' means crushed grass, the tracks of feet that have woven this territory of encounters for generations.
The sculpture is made of corten steel, and each of its petals contains a word laser-cut, revealing the names of places in this region derived from indigenous languages such as Boituva, Tietê, Cuiabá, and Itararé. This circle of words helps to form an emotional connection between residents and the installation.
As a visual and symbolic landmark, the piece is both contemplative and functional, representing a hybrid of urban furniture and artwork. 'Encontros' is an evolution of Estudio Guto Requena's nearly twenty-year research and his great interest in creating opportunities for attachment in public spaces. It is integrated into a series of other urban installations created by the studio and forms an integral part of Guto's current doctoral dissertation at the University of Lisbon, where he studies the potential of stimulating urban empathy through design and new technologies.