XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

“Os espíritos das minhas filhas”: Indigenous Art, Performance, and Feminist movements in Brazil

• In Event: Skeptical Hope: Performing Beyond The Pink Tide and Neofascism in Brazil

Abstract

This paper will focus on the uses of performance and art by Indigenous women in Brazil as methods of political interventions. The artworks of this paper look at how these artists insert their presence and perspective as Indigenous women into images featured in public spaces to major art events like the Sao Paulo Bienal. They will be interwoven with the Marcha das Mulheres Indigenas and the legislative debates occurring about the “Marco Temporal,” which will demonstrate the relationship being built between contemporary Indigenous art and political movements. Occurring beside these more formal political actions, this paper considers how works of performance and art are contributing to the movement. The primary case studies of this paper are Daiara Tukano’s public murals as part of the CURA project and Sueli Maxakali’s work for the 34th Sao Paulo Bienal titled Kumxop koxuk yõg [Os espíritos das minhas filhas]. Both Tukano’s CURA mural from 2020 titled “Selva Mãe do Rio Menino'' and Maxakali’s installation work critique the rise in deforestation, pollution of water, and Indigenous access to their ancestral lands, and are reliant on place-based ancestral knowledge of each of their nations. Thus these works are dependent on reclaiming land, but here land is understood through Tukano’s quote: “All territories are Indigenous, the lands, sciences, art, thought,” where the reclamation of land includes the epistemological as well as the physical. It rests in the uplifting and centering of the role of Indigenous women in their communities and in the fight for land demarcation.

Author

• Patricia Gomes, UC Berkeley