Artist
Gabriel Massan
Gabriel Massan, born in 1996 in Rio de Janeiro, lives and works in Berlin. A multidisciplinary artist, he works across 3D animation, digital sculpture, video games, and interactive installations. He defines his practice as fictional archaeology—using storytelling and world-building to create speculative digital environments that address themes of inequality, displacement, and the Latin American experience.
He has presented solo exhibitions at BOZAR, the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, the Serpentine Galleries, and The Photographers’ Gallery. He received the Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in the Interactive Art+ category (2024).
HOW DO WE GET THERE?
HOW DO WE GET THERE? draws inspiration from the Brazilian phenomenon of train hopping, the practice of stowing away on freight trains to travel across the country. In the work, this informal, and often risky, mode of transportation becomes a metaphor for contemporary social trajectories. Travel is no longer simply a journey from point A to point B, but an uncertain process marked by detours, obstacles, and constant adaptation.
From this perspective, the notions of “departure” and “arrival” lose their linear nature. They transform into unstable states, constantly negotiated between material constraints and individual aspirations, between real geography and subjective experience. Transportation, a symbol of mobility and progress, reveals here its limitations and inequalities, particularly in the contexts of the Global South where infrastructure does not guarantee equitable access to travel.
The immersive installation designed by Gabriel Massan transposes this reality into a speculative universe. A spaceship traverses hybrid landscapes, both futuristic and fragmented, that defy traditional cartographic logic. These territories seem to exist outside official frameworks, like interstitial zones where the possibilities of movement and existence are redefined. The digital aesthetic and generated environments immerse the viewer in a sensory experience where fiction, memory, and social critique intertwine.
Through this work, the artist highlights an experience of displacement marked by precariousness, but also by persistence and inventiveness. Reaching a destination appears to be an uncertain, even unattainable goal. Yet the movement itself becomes essential: continuing to move forward constitutes a form of resistance.
