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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.