This is the first exhibition in Japan dedicated to the collaboration between Brazilian artist and activist Claudia Andujar and the Yanomami people of Brazil.
The Yanomami are one of the largest indigenous groups in the Amazon, traditional inhabitants of a territory that stretches between Venezuela and Brazil.
Claudia Andujar was born in Switzerland in 1931 and grew up in Transylvania in a Jewish and Protestant family. A Holocaust survivor, Andujar emigrated to New York in 1946. Nine years later, she moved to São Paulo, where she began a prolific career as a photographer, with a special interest in vulnerable communities. In 1971, Andujar traveled to the Yanomami region in northern Brazil for the first time. The encounter would become a lifelong commitment, transforming her art into a tool for raising awareness and political activism on behalf of the Yanomami people.
One of the main spokespeople for the Yanomami is the shaman Davi Kopenawa (b. ca 1956), a survivor of the measles epidemic that decimated his community in 1967. Since the 1970s, Kopenawa has fought daily to defend his people from the greed and violence of non-indigenous society, sharing the wisdom of a society that lives in harmony with the fauna, flora and environment.
In recent decades, Andujar, Kopenawa and many other activists have joined forces in a daily struggle for the sovereignty of the Yanomami people, for the respect of their way of seeing the world and for the defense of their territory - whose rights were finally guaranteed with the demarcation approved in 1992.
In the first part of this exhibition, photographs taken by Andujar in the 1970s and 1980s, while she was trying to translate the Yanomami worldview for the non-indigenous world, are shown alongside Kopenawa's words, and with drawings and films made by Yanomami artists and shamans from yesterday and today. These works offer a multidimensional perspective of the Yanomami people of Brazil and an insight into the invisible dimension of their spiritual world.
In the second part of the exhibition, the audiovisual installation Yanomami Genocide: Death of Brazil (1989) denounces the threats suffered by the Yanomami people as a result of the advance of non-indigenous society over their territory, aggravated during the programs to occupy the Amazon promoted by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).
The problems faced by the Yanomami due to invasions and illegal activities in their territory, such as mining, logging or drug trafficking, go back a long way. These problems are shared with many other indigenous peoples in Brazil and abroad.
At a time when violence in the Amazon and the global climate crisis dominate the news, this exhibition also shows the contribution of art to expanding the knowledge and sovereignty of indigenous peoples around the world. More than an art exhibition, this project is a platform for the Yanomami people to continue to be seen and protected against constant and renewed threats.
Claudia Andujar, Collective house near the Catholic mission on the Catrimani River, Roraima state, 1976. Mineral pigment print, from infrared film. (68.5 x 102.5 cm). Instituto Moreira Salles Collection
Claudia Andujar, Susi Korihana thëri, Catrimani, 1972–1974.
Mineral pigment print from infrared film. (68.5 x 102.5 cm). Instituto Moreira Salles Collection
Claudia Andujar, Guests from the Xaxanapi community enter the collective house of their Korihana thëri hosts for the inauguration of the reahu ceremony, Catrimani, 1974.
Mineral pigment print. (68.5 x 102.5 cm). Instituto Moreira Salles Collection
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Claudia Andujar クラウディア・アンドゥハル
Claudia Andujar was born in Switzerland in 1931 and raised in Transylvania before immigrating to New York City in 1946 after escaping the Holocaust, when most of her Jewish family was exterminated. She moved to Brazil in 1955, where she started a career as a photographer. In 1971, Andujar met the Yanomami people – one of the largest indigenous groups in Brazilian Amazonia – while working in an assigment for the Brazilian magazine Realidade. The encounter changed her life. For over five decades, Andujar has been collaborating with the Yanomami people in defense of their rights and sovereignty. This exhibition tells the story of this collaboration through Claudia Andujar’s work, the words of Yanomami shaman and spokesperson Davi Kopenawa, as well as drawings and films by Yanomami artists. It also presents the Yanomami cosmovision and policits in an effort to protect their society from non-indigenous threaths and violence.
