FRANCISCO BRENNAND AND PERNAMBUCO'S CULTURAL MODERNITY: ART, TERRITORY, AND SUBJECTIVITY AS LANGUAGES OF RE-EXISTENCE

Abstract

This study investigated the relevance of Francisco Brennand's production to the shaping of a cultural modernity implanted in the Pernambuco context, with special attention to the aesthetic, symbolic, and territorial aspects of his work. It started from the understanding that Brazilian cultural modernity is not established exclusively through the incorporation of European models, but also through the emergence of autonomous languages ​​that arise from the geographical and conceptual margins of the artistic system. Brennand's creation is deeply linked to clay, mythology, sexuality, and collective memory; this was interpreted as a manifestation of an insurgent subjectivity, capable of transforming matter into thought and territory into work. The Francisco Brennand Ceramic Workshop was identified not only as a space for artistic production, but also as a symbolic territory of aesthetic resistance, in which architecture, sculpture, and landscape intertwine in a living, formative, and experimental organism. The analysis also highlighted the continued relevance of Brennand's legacy for contemporary artistic practices, as well as its introduction into cultural policies, educational initiatives, and reconfigurations of the social imaginary. The methodological approach was based on a bibliographic review of academic works published between 2020 and 2025, prioritizing authors who discuss art, decoloniality, and peripheral modernities. It concludes that Brennand not only produced works but also instituted a unique way of perceiving, feeling, and inhabiting the world from the symbolic ground of the Northeast, establishing himself as one of the protagonists of cultural modernity in Brazil.