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From the forest to the museum: Notes on the artistic and spiritual collaboration between Ernesto Neto and the Huni Kuin people


Pages: 76 - 94

Abstract

Registering and publicizing a portion of their traditions through media and spaces like books, videos, and exhibitions is a contemporary strategy, observed in various countries, used by many indigenous collectives to reaffirm their identities and occupy a political vantage point vis-à-vis national society and other indigenous peoples. At the same time, it is inevitable that traditions are stylized and reinvented in these encounters. Ernesto Neto embarked on an audacious project with few precedents in Brazil or abroad, a venture that will still perhaps involve adaptations and adjustments. A series of subjects are involved, each with their own distinct view. Divisions exist among the Huni Kuin themselves: some are opposed to Neto’s work and the Livro de Cura, others have a deep appreciation for such initiatives. Still others simply observe, somewhat resigned, that “there aren’t many people who care about the Indians, so we like those who try to do something for us.” Neither can we forget the differences in the perspectives of curators, organizers, the public, the media, and the participants in the ayahuasca sessions. Even the terms of this partnership are continually shifting. We can take as an example the question of authorship. In Bilbao, one of the installations was called “The body that carries me” and was attributed to Neto alone, without the Huni Kuin. In São Paulo, the installation “In search of the sacred” was again attributed to Neto. In Vienna, by contrast, the exhibition as a whole was entitled “Ernesto Neto and the Huni Kuin.” We can perceive a change in the nature of the collaboration and in the way of attributing authorship, although the Huni Kuin remain designated as a collective whole, without identifying those participating individually. The collaborations, publications and exhibitions involving indigenous and non-indigenous artists, Brazilians and foreigners, anthropologists, members of the New Age movement, and individuals from the art world represent opportunities for exchange and learning, as well as raising the profile of indigenous wisdom, traditions, and creativity. They also represent ways for indigenous identities and practices to be transformed and revitalized. The interpenetration between art, ritual, and spirituality expressed in works like those of Ernesto Neto is a fertile field, which we do not claim to have exhausted by any means in this chapter. The ayahuasca rituals conducted in this context invite us, for example, to rethink the watertight and reductionist separation between the “recreational use” (playful, aesthetic, pleasurable) and “sacred use” (traditional, ritualistic, religious) of “drugs,” as well as the limits of contemporary drug policies. At the same time, Neto’s work, following a current trend, throws into question the boundaries between contemporary art and anthropological practice that seem to be becoming increasingly tenuous. Our hope is that this chapter can contribute to the emergence of new research in this same direction.