Brazil's first Indigenous curator: 'We're not afraid anymore'

[Judi Lynn]

Brazil's first Indigenous curator: 'We're not afraid anymore'

A photo provided by Sallisa Rosa, a knife that represents survival and resistance for rural Indigenous workers, part of Sallisa Rosa’s series “Resistance.” Brazil’s first Indigenous art curator, Sandra Benites, who grew up with the Guaraní Ñandeva people in the village of Porto Lindo, wants to use art like Rosa’s to bridge the gap between Indigenous Brazilians and those from other backgrounds. Sallisa Rosa via The New York Times.

by Jill Langlois

SAO PAULO (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Sandra Benites’ work is all about finding common ground. As Brazil’s first indigenous art curator, the 45-year-old educator, who grew up with the Guaraní Ñandeva people in the village of Porto Lindo, wants to use art to bridge the gap between indigenous Brazilians and those from other backgrounds.

She is searching for a way to show their commonality and is looking to represent many of her country’s 305 ethnic groups in “Indigenous Stories,” a yearlong exhibition of global indigenous art set to take place at the Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, known as MASP, in 2021.

That shared thread, she said, will come in examples of storytelling and the profound connection all indigenous Brazilians have to their land.

“My favorite thing is to look at the narrative — everyone has their own way of telling a story,” Benites said. But what unites indigenous people, she added, “is our vision of the world and how it relates to our territory.” As one of several curators of “Indigenous Stories,” she will organize an exhibition that features sculpture, paintings, photographs, dance, narrative song, performance and audiovisual art associated with the land.

In recent months, Brazil’s indigenous land has been at the center of a battle between the current administration of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, and environmental activists, many of whom are indigenous. As fires raged toward the end of 2019 across the Amazon in the country’s north, indigenous leaders called for an end to the decadeslong deforestation of the rainforest, along with the violent attacks on leaders who were trying to protect their land. Illegal miners, loggers, farmers and ranchers became emboldened by a president who promised not to give “one more centimeter” of land to indigenous people so that it could be used, instead, for activities he deemed more lucrative for the country’s economy.

More:
https://artdaily.cc/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=123833#.XssqVjpKjDc

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[niyad]

1. Thank you so much for sharing this.

[safeinOhio]

2. How far backward can

history march?