A New Dawn: Sophie de Mello Franco on Curating “Alvorada” at Dover Street Market Paris

Presented within the dynamic setting of Dover Street Market Paris, “Alvorada” marks a luminous new chapter for Brazilian contemporary art in dialogue with Europe. Curated by Sophie de Mello Franco, founder of @orfeo0112, the exhibition gathers emerging voices including Antonio Társis, Luísa Matsushita, and Ana Cláudia Almeida, reflecting on transformation, resilience, and renewal. On view in Paris until November 13, 2025, “Alvorada” embodies a vivid exchange between France and Brazil—bridging geography, language, and artistic sensibility.

Whitewall spoke with de Mello Franco about her curatorial approach, the hybrid model of ORFEO 0112, and the evolution of Brazilian art in international contexts.

Sophie de Mello Franco on Bridging Worlds

WHITEWALL: Alvorada coincides with a moment of renewed dialogue between France and Brazil. How did this cultural exchange shape your curatorial approach to the exhibition?

SOPHIE DE MELLO FRANCO: Alvorada emerged in a moment of renewed cultural exchange between France and Brazil, which inspired me to contribute to this dialogue, which is also very personal to me, given my dual nationality. I wanted to create a space for Brazilian voices to resonate freely within a European context in a spirit of curiosity and shared insights. Dover Street Market Paris, with its fluid character, became a meeting point where these sensibilities could intertwine naturally.

WW: The title “Alvorada,” meaning “dawn,” carries connotations of light, resilience, and new beginnings. What does this concept represent for you personally, and how did it guide your selection of artists?

SDMF: For me, Alvorada evokes the idea of a collective awakening — not only the literal dawn but the moment when light begins to redefine how we perceive things. Coming from Brazil, “dawn” also has historical and emotional resonances: resilience in the face of adversities and a belief in rebirth through culture, be it art, music, architecture… The selection of artists came from that impulse — each of them transforms fragments of the everyday into something luminous. They work with humble materials, personal memories, and through them, something new emerges.

“Each of them transforms fragments of the everyday into something luminous,”

-Sophie de Mello Franco

WW: The exhibition unfolds within the distinctive architecture of Dover Street Market Paris rather than a conventional gallery. How did you approach curating within such a layered, living space where fashion, art, and design intersect?

SDMF: Dover Street Market Paris is a living space — part retail, part exhibition, part social space. I wanted to embrace this fluidity. It’s about meeting art where life happens — blurring categories and encouraging spontaneous encounters.

Poetics of Everyday

WW: The artists you’ve brought together—Antonio Társis, Luísa Matsushita, Ana Claudia Almeida, and others—share an attention to the everyday and to collective memory. What connects their practices in your view, and what kind of dialogue emerges between them in this context?

SDMF: The artists in Alvorada share a sensitivity to the materials and gestures of everyday life — be it Antonio Társis’s use of the ubiquitous matchboxes found in Salvador and across Brazil, Ana Cláudia Almeida, whose paintings are fluid compositions that occupy and fill the space, or Luísa Matsushita’s observation of everyday dynamics, which she translates into refined abstract compositions. What connects them is a poetics of transformation. 

WW: Your career spans working with leading galleries, more recently at Gagosian, to now founding your own project, ORFEO 0112. How has your curatorial voice evolved through that journey—from the blue-chip art world to creating your own hybrid structure?

SDMF: I was privileged to observe the rigor within established structures. It gave me great insights. I’ve always been interested in a place of intersection so I wanted to create a porous structure, one that could connect art with other languages. ORFEO 0112 brings about hybrid spaces and conversations across different ecosystems from a horizontal perspective, collaborative and attuned to context.

WW: Your curatorial practice often bridges Latin America and Europe. What are the most meaningful opportunities and challenges in creating cross-cultural conversations between these two contexts?

SDMF: The dialogue between Latin America and Europe for instance, has historically been asymmetrical, but it’s also fertile. My goal is to create exchanges that are reciprocal. The opportunity lies in that hybridity: between North and South, East and West, modernism and orality, tradition and experimentation.

Beyond the Gallery Space

WW: ORFEO 0112 merges art advisory, production, and cultural consulting. How do you envision this model responding to the way exhibitions, brands, and institutions collaborate today?

SDMF: Today, the boundaries of exhibition-making are dissolving. ORFEO 0112 responds to that by incorporating culture within a broader goal — with curatorial thinking to build meaning. 

WW: Alvorada presents themes of cultural resilience, but also of transformation. How do you see Brazilian contemporary art evolving, particularly as it enters international dialogues in places like Paris?

SDMF: Brazilian art carries the spirit of transformation — born from much turbulence, yet constantly reinventing itself. A younger generation of artists is reexamining themes such as identity, ecology, spirituality through deeply personal vocabularies. When presented in places like Paris, this can reframe existing narratives and introduce new temporalities, perhaps slower, more relational, more tactile.

“Brazilian art carries the spirit of transformation,”

-Sophie de Mello Franco

WW: If Alvorada symbolizes a new beginning, what kind of future do you imagine for the next generation of artists—and for your own curatorial practice? What does the next chapter of this “dawn” look like for you

SDMF: I imagine a continuation of artistic practices that are both poetic and pragmatic — rooted in community yet connected globally. For myself, the next chapter is about expanding ORFEO 0112 as a bridge — continuing to create projects that cross disciplines and geographies, and to build a language of cultural resonance.