People & Projects
Below are informations, images, sounds & links providing material on people, communities, projects, events and talks (>>> marks the beginning of a new entry)
>>> Xico Community Museum celebrates 25 Years of Resistance. 25 Años de Construcción y Resistencia.
The Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico is celebrating its 25 years anniversary with a new Website and Book.
More information on the website https://www.museocomunitariodelvalledexico.com/
>>> The Return of a Lake: The Community Museum of Valle de Xico, social practice, and Indigenous hydro-agriculture. Keynote Lecture by Maria Thereza Alves, moderated by Clara Balaguer.
The online event took place on November 6, 2020 and was organized by Melly & FKAWDW – Former Known as Witte de With, Rotterdam. It can be seen & heard here.
>>> Cumbre Aconcagua. Part Two. El Robo (Theft). Lecture & Panel with Maria Thereza Alves & Denise Ferreira da Silva, moderated by Camila Marambio.
The online event took place on August 25, 2020 and was organized by MoMA & Cisneros Institute Events. It can be seen & heard here.
>>> Shirley Krenak founded the "Instituto Shirley Djukurnã Krenak".
Follow the instituts activities on Facebook.
O Instituto Shirley Djukurnã Krenak tem como objetivos principais a promoção de atividades de educação socioambiental e ações na recuperação da biodiversidade; desenvolvimento de atividades agroecológicas que visem o bem-estar da sociedade.
The Shirley Djukurnã Krenak Institute has as its main objectives the promotion of socio-environmental educational activities as well as actions for the recovery of biodiversity and development of agro-ecological activities for the well being of society.
>>> The Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico is under attack.
Tesseræ recently published a piece about the Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico on its Recentering Periphery Blog. The interview they carried out with the community museum’s director, Genaro Amaro can be heard online here: Text and Interview with Xico's community museum’s director, Genaro Amaro.
Tesseræ is a platform connecting critical multidisciplinary research, education, art, communication and project development in urban, territorial and social fields. Based in Berlin, Tesseræ works with local communities, independent and non-profit organisations, as well as local, national and European institutions.
>>> Website for the Project: Decolonizing Brazil / Descolonizando o Brasil.
www.descolonizandobrasil.com.br was launched at September 18, 2018.
further information about the project Descolonizando o Brasil at SESC Sorocaba
DECOLONIZING BRAZIL / DESCOLONIZANDO O BRASIL is a project and website by Maria Thereza Alves in collaboration with Cagüücü Tikuna (Lucas Quirino), Kaly Tariano (Agostinho Brazão Barbosa), Kuhupi Waura, Ñorõ Tuyuka (Reginaldo Ramos), Omawalieni Baniwa (Eliane C. Guilherme), Potira Kambeba (Rosangela B. Braga), Rayana Atikum (Rayana S. Freire), Selia Tukano (Selia Massa Alves) and Sunia Yebámashã (Jonas Prado Barbosa)
>>> Naine Terena is speaking at the Symposium of Psychology and Social Commitment. PUC University São Paulo. March 20–22, 2017 PUC University São Paulo. March 20–22, 2017
Panel title: O embaraço do pensamento colonizado
Naine Terena, Moderator, Manuel Calviño and Rita Segato (left to right)
at the PUC Symposium, March 20, 2017
detailed informations on the Simpósio Nacional Psicologia e Compromisso Social
WATCH Naine Terena's panel lecture (3:31:40 h/min/sec)
>>> A Possible Reversal of Missed Opportunities / Uma possível reversão de oportunidades perdidas. 32nd São Paulo Bienial, 2016
In July, Alves held 3 workshops in Brazil in indigenous communities to realize the work A Possible Reversal of Missed Opportunities for the 32nd São Paulo Bienial 2016.
Alves_Name sta_project text (PDF English)
link to Alves Bienial work A Possible Reversal of Missed Opportunities
above: Workshop on Decolonization "conference" at the Limão Verde Terena Reservation in Aquidauana, Mato Grosso do Sul.
above: participants of the Workshop on Decolonization at the Opening of the 32nd São Paulo Bienial, September 2016 with their conference posters in the background (from left: Max, Edina, Wendel, Maria Thereza, Soleane, Tatiane, Valdirene and Mathias in the back; photo: huo)
>>> Museo Comunitario Xico and Genaro Amaro Altamirano
The Museo Comunitario of the Valley of Xico is an initiative of the local community as an active defence of their indigenous culture. It is responsible for saving almost five thousand prehispanic artifacts from oblivion or destruction as there is no other institution in the municipality interested in protecting this cultural heritage. The artifacts are donated to the museum by members of the local community who find them in the surrounding area. Genaro Amaro Altamirano is one of the founders and chronicler of the region.
Since the presentation of Alves's The Return of a Lake in dOCUMENTA 13, the museum's program has expanded and an artists’s collective, Xicoarte, has been founded.
The Museo Comunitario publish booklets with widespread background information on the area's history, poetry, water conditions, their ancestral patrimonies etc. – We provide here four of these booklets as PDFs (mostly with an English translation):
1_Xico booklet No 23 on General History of the Area (PDF Spanish)
2_Xico booklet No 6 on Poetry (PDF Spanish-English)
3_Xico booklet No 19 on Patrimonio (PDF Spanish-English)
4_Xico booklet No 20 on Water (PDF (Spanish-English)
follow the museum's activities on Facebook
photo below: Genaro Amaro Altamirano in the Museo Comunitario in Xico
>>> Shirley Krenak and Tam Krenak, Lisbon 2009
Shirley Krenak and Tam Krenak at the entrance of the Historical Overseas Archives of the former Empire of Portugal in Lisbon in 2009. They hoped to find documentation on the Krenaks who were one of the first indigenous peoples to have met the Portuguese as they were residing on the Atlantic coastline before being pushed inland by the colonizers. They found no information nor any cultural objects in any of the archives - they had been searching for one particular important sacred object. We were devastated to see that the Portuguese colonizers had simply no interest, not even minimum, in the people they first met upon arriving in Brazil and who later they were to declare a genocidal war against.
Krenak History (PDF English)_written by Shirley, Douglas and Tam Krenak_2009
Watch documentary ENDLESS WAR - Resistência e Luta do Povo Krenak (2016)
(Portuguese with English Subtitles)
>>> Ka'aguy re jaiko - Vivemos na Mata. São Paulo 2016
Jera Guarani, a young leader of the Kalipety Reservation in the state of São Paulo begins this poetic video by describing her strongest childhood memory of smell before it became so influenced by non-indigenous products. It was that of her father returning home after working in the fields, planting maize, manioc and sweet potato and these smells mixing with the smell of the forest and the earth with his own smell. Members of different Guarani reservations in São Paulo discuss methods for recuperating the earth on their land base which has been returned to them after much environmental destruction caused by Brazilians with, for example, the mono-cultivation of eucalyptus which seriously depletes the earth of all nutrients. The Guarani planting process and importance of herbs for medicinal and social purposes are also discussed.
Book and documentary published by: Organização Programa Aldeias, Centro de Trabalho Indigenista
Watch documentary Ka'aguy re jaiko - Vivemos na Mata (2016)
(Portuguese, partly Guarani with Portuguese Subtitles)
above: filmstill
>>> New Narrative for Europe, 3rd General Assembly, Berlin, March 2014
The New Narrative for Europe was former EU president Barrosso’s attempt to have artists and others meet and think about a new narrative for Europe. Alves was invited to participate.