Camille Kachani (Beirut, Lebanon, 1963) has lived and worked in São Paulo since childhood, when his family settled in Brazil. The son of Syrian refugees, he was born without documents, without a homeland, and without the right to be recognized as Lebanese. This condition became the foundation of a poetics dedicated to investigating identity, displacement, and belonging. His practice encompasses sculpture, objects, collage, photography, and installation.
Kachani's work begins with the appropriation of everyday objects to build hybrid organisms: books from which branches sprout, tools that become plant-like creatures, and furniture that unfolds into organic landscapes. His metamorphic sculptures combine botanical elements such as branches, leaves, and flowers with household utensils, musical instruments, and books, creating a deliberate ambiguity: when confronted with the works, it is difficult to tell what was manipulated by the artist and what was appropriated from nature itself. This procedure is part of an investigation the artist has pursued for more than thirty years into the differences and affinities between what might be considered natural and what is human-made.
In recent works, Kachani deepens this investigation by engaging with Brazil's anthropological and historical layers. He sews and screws objects onto canvas treated with resin and fiberglass, creating patchwork quilts that articulate erasure, collective memory, and the struggle over the imaginary. In works such as Pindoretama (2025), the artist recovers the original Tupi-Guarani name for the land now called Brazil (a word formed from the combination of "pindó," palm tree, and "retama," place, translated as "land of the palm trees") and proposes a critical rereading of national history through the eyes of the peoples silenced in its official narrative. In Kachani's own words, the work is political but not activist; above all, it is poetic. The project draws on the concept of counter-history formulated by Michel Onfray and expands the conceptual field of the artist's research.
His works are held in institutional collections including MAR (Museu de Arte do Rio), MAM-SP, MAC-USP, MAC Niterói (Coleção João Sattamini), MAM Rio (Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand), MAC Paraná, MoLAA (Museum of Latin American Art, Los Angeles), Fundación Otazu (Spain), Colección Metropolitana Contemporánea (Buenos Aires), and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam (Havana). Kachani has held five solo exhibitions at Zipper Galeria: Uma Contra-História do Brasil (2025), Orquestra Assinfônica Fotossintética (2023), Solilóquio (2019), Encyclopaedia Privata (2016) and Natural e manual (2014), as well as exhibitions at FUNARTE (São Paulo, 2008), the Temporada de Projetos at Paço das Artes (2007), Fundação Joaquim Nabuco (Recife, 2007), and the Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Paraná (Curitiba, 2004). Among notable group exhibitions, he took part in Adiar o fim do mundo at FGV Arte (Rio de Janeiro, 2025), curated by Ailton Krenak and Paulo Herkenhoff; Doações recentes (2012–2015) at MAR (curated by Paulo Herkenhoff, 2016); A Casa at MAC-USP (curated by Katia Canton, 2016); the Bienal Internacional de Curitiba (2015); and the XIV Biennale Internationale de l'Image (Nancy, France, 2006). In 2024, he created the inaugural window display for the new Hermès store at Shopping Iguatemi in São Paulo.