Hi, my name is Lídia Chaves, I am an artist from Minas Gerais, Brazil, currently living in Stuttgart, Germany. After living and studying in Ouro Preto and London, I have pursued my education in Architecture at the University of Stuttgart and interned at Olafur Eliasson’s studio in Berlin for almost one year.
Over time, my focus has shifted from formal architecture toward a more artistic exploration of space, with a particular interest in language and the writing of memory in public space. My work combines archival research with the poetics and politics of storytelling.
Since my first public installation, NEBEN DEM KAKAOFELD, a poetic commemoration of the 1928 Colonial Exhibition in Stuttgart’s city garden, I have been engaged in an ongoing research on the traces of colonial spaces in Stuttgart. This research has led to the projects bei Nills (2024), AUCH HIER (2025), and the development of a new concept for colonial memory in Stuttgart, supported by the city’s cultural office and the office for remembrance culture.
Alongside my artistic practice, I have had the opportunity to collaborate as a lecturer at the Chair of Art in Architecture, led by Prof. Sophie Erlund, at the Technical University of Munich, and to serve as an ambassador for colonial memory with the Cultural Office in Stuttgart, contributing with research and writing.
“Sometimes, doing something poetic can become political and sometimes, doing something political can become poetic.” —Francis Alÿs