Colours.Rhythms.Realms

BRAZIL as a Guest in the GIANT Swarovski Kristallwelten Wattens

Crystal is pure fascination and a symbol of fantasy and transformation. It bundles light or disperses it into rainbow coloured rays, provides a clear perspective or seduces with amazement and dreams.

Swarovski's Crystal Worlds in Wattens mirror all these properties and are an interactive venue, which repeatedly conveys ever new visions and information while being a grandiose stage for international art and culture.

This living interaction also characterises the "winter performance" in the Crystal Worlds, which takes the visitor to a different distant country each year. After the enthralling festivals provided by China, Australia, Iceland, Russia and India, the Giant is now, for the next four months host to tropically exotic Brazil, presenting fascinating insights into the large variety of its landscapes, inhabitants, traditions and arts under the title Colous.Rhythms.Realms.

BRAZIL as a Guest in the GIANT
Copacabana, Samba, the Amazon, Rio, Soccer, the Rain Forest, Favelas, Indios … Brazil evokes many associations which, although coherent, only reflect a part of this gigantic country. "Brazil as a guest in the Giant" on the other hand would like to draw attention to the unknown, contemporary Brazil and has, therefore, invited a number of extraordinary artists to present their home country.

This gave rise to a new, diverse and sometimes even controversial image of today's Brazil, which does not, however, lose any of its vitality and beauty.


Colours.Rhythms.Realms
While the Tyrolean landscape is shiveringly swathed in winter's delicate whiteness and unobtrusive misty grey, the garden and subterranean Chambers of Wonder are filled with exotically colourful life: colours, rhythms and the Brazilian attitude to life dominate the scene.

The young inhabitants of a real Favela have created a detailed copy, not only of their anthropospheres, but also of their secret dreams of life: The Favela.Morrinho, which was described as "Rio's small miracle" by the international art scene. The Samba.Cube in the park of the Crystal Worlds is where Brazilian Photographer Helmut Batista enables a 360° view of the fantastic atmosphere of the world renowned Sambadromo and provides an electrifying live introduction to the "Rio Carnaval." The antipole to this effervescent urban joy of life is then created by the Amazonia Jewel, in which you can contemplatively trace the natural wonders of the tropical rain forest.

The Giant's entrance hall allows renewed submersion in pulsating rhythms: an hourly display of Capoeira performances. Capoeira is a passionate mixture of dance, acrobatics, ritual and play, as popular in Brazil as the famous Samba, which is the centre of attraction during the electrifying Samba.Party on 13 March 2009.

The Gallery focuses entirely on contemporary Brazilian artists: Highraff presents expressive Graffiti from São Paulo; photographers Louise Chin and Ignacio Aronovich, from LOST ART, use their work to illustrate everyday Brazilian urban and rural life; and artists from the most varied genres interlink crystal and everyday objects in the most unusual manner in the Brazil.Design exhibition.

Two cooperation exhibitions with aut. architektur und tirol provide photo and film documentaries by Günter Richard Wett to display the buildings and concepts of central Brazilian architects as well as an architectural student trip through the metropoles of São Paulo, Brasilia, Salvador and Rio. Also the renowned Leokino presents extraordinary cinematic art from or about Brazil every second Wednesday of the month.

There are also lots of new things to be expected by the young visitors to the Crystal Worlds. The Kristalline Werkstätte offers activities for children and youngsters between the ages of 4 and 16 to discover this fascinating exotic country in their own ways: playfully, creatively and with all the senses.

press release (pdf)

picture gallery