A company owned by Bernardo Paz, the Brazilian collector and founder of the Inhotim sculpture park, has been accused of using child labour. In an investigation for Bloomberg Businessweek, Alex Cuadros reports multiple testimonies of people who say they worked for Replasa, Paz’s charcoal production company, or its subcontractors, before they had reached the age of 16. Replasa deny the claims. The same company is accused of taking land in northern Minas Gerais that had been used by local people for subsistence farming, and using it to plant Eucalyptus, the trees harvested and burnt as a source of charcoal. The plantations drained the rivers, meaning that many of those that had managed stay in the area after the company had moved in, were then forced to move.
Paz is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence of tax avoidance. Inhotim is set over 3,000 acres in Minas Gerais and features pavilions filled with works from Paz’s collection, including largescale installations by Olafur Eliasson, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Paul McCarthy and Chris Burden.
8 June 2018
