“Hervé Chandès, Artistic Managing Director of the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain and Alex Poots, Artistic Director & CEO of The Shed, are pleased to announce the North American debut of The Yanomami Struggle, a comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the collaboration and friendship between artist and activist Claudia Andujar and the Yanomami people, one of the largest Indigenous groups living in Amazonia today.
Following acclaimed presentations at the IMS São Paulo, the Fondation Cartier, and the Barbican Centre (London), among other venues, the exhibition will be expanded at The Shed to include more than 80 drawings and paintings by Yanomami artists André Taniki, Ehuana Yaira, Joseca Mokahesi, Orlando Nakɨ uxima, Poraco Hɨko, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, and Vital Warasi. Visitors will also discover new video works by contemporary Yanomami filmmakers Aida Harika, Edmar Tokorino, Morzaniel Ɨramari, and Roseane Yariana. These works will appear alongside more than 200 photographs by Claudia Andujar that trace the artist’s encounters with the Yanomami and continue to raise visibility for their struggle to protect their land, people, and culture. The dialogue established between the contemporary Yanomami artists’ work and Andujar’s photographs offers an unprecedented vision of Yanomami culture, society, and visual art. The contemporary Yanomami works will be shown in New York for the first time, building the most extensive presentation of Yanomami art in the U.S. to date.” — The Shed
“I think the most important thing is the chance to introduce people to another aspect of our world. At the same time, this other aspect of our world allows us to recognize ourselves in other human beings who deserve to live their lives as they wish and according to their own understanding of the world“. — Claudia Andujar
“Those who do not know the Yanomami will know them through these images. My people are in them. You have never visited them, but they are present here. It is important to me and to you, your sons and daughters, young adults, children to learn to see and respect my Yanomami people of Brazil who have lived in this land for many years”. — Davi Kopenawa, shaman and Yanomami leader
“At a time when Amazonia is threatened once again by unbridled development, deforestation, and illegal mining, this exhibition presents a multilayered narrative of violence and resistance. It also uses art as a platform to amplify the Yanomami voices and expose our responsibilities in the humanitarian and environmental crisis threatening Indigenous societies worldwide”. — Thyago Nogueira, curator
The exhibition is curated by Thyago Nogueira, Head of Contemporary Photography at Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo, Brazil (IMS) and organized by IMS, the Fondation Cartier, and The Shed in partnership with the Brazilian NGOs Hutukara Associação Yanomami and Instituto Socioambiental.
Images courtesy The Shed.