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- Convenors:
-
Giuliana Borea
(Newcastle University)
Alex Ungprateeb Flynn (University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA))
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- Stream:
- Who Speaks and for Whom?
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 31 March, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
How does the practice of artists who self-identify as indigenous make us rethink categories of activism, indigeneity and artistic intentionality? This panel welcomes papers that consider approaches to human rights, migration, extractivism, urban place-making, decoloniality and ontology.
Long Abstract:
Recent years have seen ever greater interest in the practice of artists who self-identify as indigenous. Reaching wider publics through internationalised frameworks of contemporary art, many such artists have become artistic and political points of reference, mobilising diverse agendas while re-addressing their own indigeneity. Processual work with artists requires a deep sense of responsibility: it is our contention that such engagements open up new possibilities and challenges for anthropologists and indigenous peoples to establish lasting and meaningful collaborations.Starting from perspectives put forward by artists in Latin America, this panel asks how artistic practice might allow us to rethink categories of indigeneity. Do indigenous artists challenge anthropological analyses that have perhaps overlooked vectors of class and mobility? How do such processes oblige us to rethink anthropological practice in terms of a responsible discussion on the tropos of "indigeneity" in the contemporary world, not only in terms of indigenous voices but also regarding bodies, practices and networks? How might a parallel anthropological/curatorial approach facilitate arenas of collaboration and the possibility to think beyond? We also consider how artistic practice touches on global questions: Does the practice of indigenous artists through the apparatus of contemporary art enable us to rethink categories of activism and artistic practice? To what extent can we interrogate the manner in which large institutions seek to work with 'indigenous art'? We welcome papers that consider approaches to human rights, migration, extractivism, urban place-making, decoloniality and ontology. How are indigenous artists approaching and mobilising these issues?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 31 March, 2021, -Lucia Sa (University of Manchester)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will focus on the works of indigenous artists Denilson Baniwa and Jaider Esbell. Specifically, it will concentrate on these artists' dialogue with São Paulo’s 'modernismo' and their take on 'antropofagia'.
Paper long abstract:
This paper will focus on the works of indigenous artists Denilson Baniwa and Jaider Esbell. Specifically, it will concentrate on these artists' dialogue with São Paulo’s 'modernismo' and their take on 'antropofagia'. Both artists have engaged directly with 'antropofagia' in some of their performances and other visual works. Some of their works’ techniques and strategies can also be described as 'antropofágicas', suggesting that 'antropofagia' has been, in many ways, a form of inspiration for them. At the same time, both artists have produced works that are profoundly critical of 'antropofagia'’s coloniality, Examining some of their works, this paper will situate their work within current debates about 'antropofagia'.
Jamille Dias (University of Manchester) Idjahure Kadiwel (Universidade de São Paulo) Naine De Jesus (Faculdade Católica de MT)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores concepts and arguments brought forward by Véxoa: Nós Sabemos [Véxoa: We Know], the first Indigenous-only art exhibition held at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. It builds on the collaboration between the curator Naine Terena, artists and researchers involved with the exhibition.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores some of the concepts and arguments brought forward by Véxoa: Nós Sabemos [Véxoa: We Know], the first Indigenous-only art exhibition held at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Ranging from audiovisual works and traditional pottery to performance art and ritual masks, all brought together within the scope of Indigenous contemporary art, Véxoa proposes a distinct timeline from the conventional one set up by chronological approaches to art history. By calling forth the plurality and diversity of originary peoples, it challenges the persistent coloniality of a visual culture based on generic, racialised stereotypes. As Indigenous human rights activist and thinker Ailton Krenak, who is also one of the artists participating in the exhibition, recently said, the new generations of Indigenous artists-activists in Brazil are making a highly purposeful use of spaces relying on ‘telas’ – a term meaning both ‘screen’ and ‘painting’ in Portuguese – ‘making cracks in the walls of museums’ and taking advantage of social media and communication technologies as an effective means to broaden and strengthen the rights of Indigenous peoples. Building on collaborations between the curator Naine Terena, artists and researchers involved with Véxoa, Pinacoteca de São Paulo and the project Cultures of Anti-Racism in Latin America, funded by AHRC and based at the University of Manchester, this co-authored paper will also draw on an ongoing series of live streamings and a soon-to-be-released short film about the exhibition.
Daniel Dinato (Université du Québec à Montréal)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore how contemporary indigenous art can transform the mainstream Brazilian art scene, especially curatorial practice. I will seek to develop the idea of the curator as a txai (the Huni Kuin word meaning "brother-in-law") and the txai as a curator.
Paper long abstract:
The term txai was popularized in Brazil with a 1990 album of the same name by the musician Milton Nascimento, atlhoug used by indigenous peoples for many decades. Txai is what members of the Huni Kuin Artists Movement (MAHKU), a group with whom I have been working since 2016, call foreigners who are relatively close. The most accurate translation for txai is “brother-in-law”. In contrast, the Huni Kuin also use the term nawa to designate non-indigenous people, a word that translates to “Whites.” Txai and nawa designate in different ways those non-indigenous peoples who crossed over the back of the mythical alligator Kapetawã, separating them from the indigenous peoples. From the categories of txai and nawa, that place me in the relationship with MAHKU members, and from this group’s artistic practice, I will develop the idea of curator-txai.
Ana Vivaldi (University of Manchester) Alejandra Egido (Directora de la Compañia teatral Teatro en Sepia) Lorena Cañuqueo (University of Rio Negro) Miriam G Alvarez (Universidad Nacional de Rio Negro)
Paper short abstract:
The two-decades-long work of Mapuche director Miriam Alvarez and Afrodescendant director Alejandra Egido challenge the project of a white settler Argentina and are hard to locate as "art" or "activism". Their work transforms "Western" artistic practice and the forms of "doing" politics as well.
Paper long abstract:
The two-decades-long work of Mapuche director Miriam Alvarez and Afrodescendant director Alejandra Egido challenge the project of a white (settler) Argentina and are hard to locate as "art" or "activism". During 2020 we engaged in collaborative research over the theatrical practices of Alvarez, who reconstructs the histories of land displacement and silencing of Mapuche people; and Egido, whose stage challenges Afro-descendant erasure and microracism In Buenos Aires; alongside researchers Lorena Cañuqueo and Ana Vivaldi. Their work is anticolonial in several ways. It goes beyond artistic representation of Mapuche and Afro themes (art with a hyphen), and yet it does not necessarily follow a plan by political organizations. First, none of them is satisfied with "representing" their communities as essentialized identities. Instead, they recreate the multiplicity of lives, including Mapuche people who are urban and may not always identify as Mapuche, Afro-women who get trapped in representing ideal Afro and make fun of that. In this, they not only challenge but also overflow a politics of representation. Second, as trained directors, they are concerned with producing effective performances, ones that use theatrical poetics to affect their audiences. And yet Theatre conventions as a "Western" art push them to constant anticolonial disruptions, including breaking linear temporalities of Argentine history. These disruptions are not only aesthetic choices but political actions that transform the regime of the sensible against colonial erasure, to regenerate Indigenous and Afro lives.