Ways of Repair : Loss and Damage Symposium | SESSION #6: Gabriela De Matos – Candomblé terreiros: Sacred Shields Against Salvador’s Climate Crisis

In this session of the Ways of Repair : Loss and Damage Symposium, architect, urban planner, researcher, professor, and curator Gabriela De Matos, presented her artist research project “Candomblé terreiros: Sacred Shields Against Salvador’s Climate Crisis” that explores how terreiros —the sacred spaces of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion— through their ancestral knowledge and their relationship with nature preservation, could address the loss and damage being caused by the climate crisis in the city of Salvador, Brazil. By documenting construction techniques and spatial arrangements, De Matos demonstrates the terreiros' microclimatic influence and their role in enhancing local living conditions in urban spaces in relation to climate intensified events such as heat waves.The project is part of Gabriela’s ongoing research on Afro-Brazilian architecture examined through an intersectional lens of race, culture, and environmental justice.

See Gabriela's digital restitution here