Ruins and Erosion: Reflections on the CasaDuna Project

CasaDuna/DuneHouse is a center of art, research and memory created in 2017 by the philosopher Julia Naidin and the visual artist Fernando Codeço. The center is situated at Atafona, a district of the city of São João da Barra, located in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Atafona used to be a seaside resort town, but it has been experiencing a very powerful process of erosion in the last decades. As a result of rising sea levels, the landscape has been radically reshaped—as a consequence, part of the coast was swallowed and several buildings slowly became ruins and are now partially submerged. For this reason, the main beach was nicknamed “Apocalypse beach.” The process of erosion taking place in the region is in part a natural one—it is also largely due to the encounter of the Atlantic Ocean with the Paraíba do Sul River—but it seems to have been accelerated by the massive industrial process that took place in the region. The river traverses the three most industrial regions of Brazil, namely, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais. CasaDuna is a center for art, research, and memory, and is shaped by the physical and psychological processes of erosion that have transformed the landscape and people in the region.