ARARA DA VOLTA GRANDE DO XINGU: ARTE INDÍGENA CONTEMPORÂNEA, URGÊNCIA ECOLÓGICA E MÚLTIPLAS RESISTÊNCIAS

Abstract

Indigenous art in Brazil today also uses contemporary languages in hybrid processes that lead to a reflection on human-nature relations and the place of indigenous cosmologies in the current context of ecological urgency. Based on interviews and the analysis of artworks by four artists from the Arara Indigenous People, Arara da Volta Grande do Xingu Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian Amazon, I seek to answer the question: How does the visual art of the Arara portray their relationship of coexistence with the socio-ecological system of the Volta Grande do Xingu? In addition to the artworks, the memories of the shaman and historian Leôncio Arara are the guiding thread of this relationship between the Arara and the Xingu River. Possibilities for interactions between art and social-environmental research with Indigenous Peoples are discussed, such as sociobiodiversity studies and methods for environmental and territorial management. The indigenous Arara cohabit with living forests and rivers, from perspectives claimed by indigenous intellectuals and artists that cosmology, art and politics are inseparable in contemporary indigenous art, which is also a space of multiple resistances.