Threats to the Yanomami people are gaining attention around the world. With the exhibition at The Shed in New York, the cultural heritage of a people goes beyond borders.
An ethnic group with a rich culture and long history, the Yanomami have become news worldwide because of a humanitarian tragedy: hunger and the destruction of their territory, which spreads across two Brazilian states and penetrates into Venezuela, and the invasion by thousands of prospectors.
At the same time that the dramatic images of the deadly effects of malnutrition circulate in the press and on social networks, however, the beauty of the Yanomami culture also becomes news and a reason for celebration thanks to an exhibition at an important museum in New York.
The images result from a meeting between a Swiss photographer and indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Cláudia Andujar visited the Yanomami villages for the first time in 1970 and saw her own history reflected in that people. “All my relatives, except my mother, died in a concentration camp,” says the photographer.
The Jewish family was a victim of the holocaust in World War II. The Yanomami have become a mission: “A people that I want to continue to live and not ‘die’ like my whole family died because of Nazism,” says Cláudia Andujar.
The photographer began to record the daily life of the Yanomami. She denounced the impacts of mining, the white man’s invasion, disease, malnutrition, and prostitution.
“The narrative of the exhibition shows this world and this society that for thousands of years has lived in a certain harmony, integrated with nature, respecting nature, and that, little by little, is being exterminated and is being attacked by non-indigenous society that does not see and who doesn’t know how to respect nature”, explains Thyago Nogueira, curator of the exhibition.
They serve as historical records of a forest, of a people that are no longer the same as they were in the 1970s. The photos call attention to a struggle for survival, for life, and voice a cry for help.
The native Ehuana Yaira says the gold miners have approached the villages again, and they are suffering a lot. Her drawings, paintings, and videos by other Yanomami artists also illustrate the indigenous relationship with the forest.
The exhibition was already planned, but it has gained even more prominence now.
The shaman and indigenous leader Davi Kopenawa understands the power of these images. For over 30 years, they have spread worldwide and helped in the movement for the demarcation of Yanomami lands, which took place in 1992.
At the time, the shaman went to New York to ask for support after receiving an award from the UN program for the environment.
“It’s the same problem that came back to Yanomami land. So that’s why I’m here to speak again,” says Davi Kopenawa.
The new complaint caught the attention of the academic community at Princeton University, one of the most recognized in the United States.
Anthropologist and researcher Agustín Fuentes say that today there are many crises, such as the forest and the climate. And that the Yanomami can help us face them if we learn to work together.
“I am asking for the protection of life and culture to continue living in our motherland. In order not to run out of my people, you have to take care, says Davi Kapenawa.
VIVIANE FAVER
Journalist
vfaver@gmail.com