GROUNDWORK : WITH AN ACRE
A FILM BY THE CCA AND FOLLOWS CARLA JUAÇABA AT THE HEART OF MINAS GERAIS
Online Film and Exhibition
Still from footage of With an Acre directed by Joshua Frank, 2025 © Joshua Frank
Psarokokalo is proud to collaborate with the Canadian Centre for Architecture to publicly stream To With an Acre, the third installment of a three-part film and exhibition series showcasing the conceptual development and fieldwork of contemporary architects. Follow Carla Juaçaba at the heart of Minas Gerais where she is developing pavilions in a coffee field facing dramatic challenges due to climate crisis - they are minimal support structures in a territory with collectives resisting extractive industrial agriculture.
The arabica coffee plant was introduced to Brazil three hundred years ago and, through the exploitation of enslaved then immigrant labour, grew into an industry that
takes up 2 million hectares of land today. Centuries of extractive culture have not only devastated the environment but entrenched social inequities. Unpredictable and
extreme weather events are further threatening livelihoods in the countryside. Despite a brutal history and ever-precarious present, there is a movement in the country
towards regenerative agriculture and reforestation.
With an Acre follows architect Carla Juaçaba as she develops a museum and community space in solidarity with Flor de Café, a collective of smallholder farmers in
Minas Gerais. Inspired by the temporality of Indigenous collective structures and the form of highway billboards that mark the extended rural landscape in the
region, Juaçaba proposes a landmark on an elevated plantation overlooking the town of Nepomuceno. Light and tactical construction will provide a space for
sharing knowledge, offering a symbolic stage of resistance while leaving a minimal trace on the earth. The pavilions will frame views of the region, but more
importantly will set a vision for the future of the territory.
With an Acre is the third chapter of Groundwork, a three-part film and exhibition series exploring the conceptual development and field research of contemporary
architects cultivating alternative modes of practice.
Carla Juaçaba established her independent practice in Rio de Janeiro in 2000, engaging in both cultural programs and private projects. For the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012, she designed the ephemeral Pavilion Humanidade with theater director Bia Lessa. She won the first edition of the international prize ArcVision Women and Architecture in 2013 and first prize of the AREA Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Award in 2018. She has taught at Mendrisio Accademia in Switzerland since 2019, and nominated as a full professor in 2023.
EXHIBITION
FILM
With an Acre
2025 | 45 min.
Digital film
Curator: Francesco Garutti
Curatorial Assistant: Irene Chin
Research: Matthew Kalil
Graphic design: HIT
Design development: Sébastien Larivière, Anh Truong
Films directed by Joshua Frank
Director of Photography: Iris Ng
Editor: Nora Tennessen