Contra-Feitiço [Counter-Spell]

The invitation to present this exhibition was issued by Terra Batida, a platform founded in 2020 and coordinated by Ritó Natálio, which focuses on monitoring socio-environmental conflicts and amplifying the ecological debate in light of the intertwining of visions and responsibilities. Over the past two years, Terra Batida has dedicated itself to researching collections from indigenous communities in Brazil held in museums and historical and ethnographic archives in the cities of Lisbon and Coimbra. To this end, it awarded creative grants and fostered collaborations with leading voices in contemporary indigenous art and thought, such as Brisa Flow, Ellen Pirá Wassu, Juão Nyn, Lilly Baniwa, Olinda Yawar Tupinambá and Ziel Karapotó, who visited these collections in person.

Denilson Baniwa’s Contra-feitiço inaugurates a gesture of public sharing of a long journey of dialogue and reflection, focusing on a critique of the institutional policies of disappearance, conservation, and memory that traverse and connect Brazil and Portugal.

The opening of Denilson Baniwa’s exhibition on 22 October will be attended by artist Brisa Flow, who will perform a show-concert-ritual. On the same day, there will also be a presentation of the programme for Alkantara, a co-producer and regular partner of the Terra Batida platform.

– Ritó Natálio / Terra Batida

Biographies

Denilson Baniwa

Denilson Baniwa is an Amazonian of Baniwa origin. His work is based on research into the appearances and disappearances of indigenous peoples in the official history of Brazil, while at the same time seeking in indigenous cosmologies and their artistic representations a possible method of sharing, archiving and safeguarding ancestral knowledge. His creations span various media, including painting, illustration, performance, videos, and photography, without abandoning the technologies of the Baniwa people. He won the 2019 PIPA Award. As a curator, he signed the Mekukradjá series (2016/2019), an event at Itaú Cultural, the Reantropofagia exhibition (2019), at the gallery of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), and the Brazilian Pavilion – renamed Hãhãwpuá – at the 2024 Venice Biennale, together with Arissana Pataxó and Gustavo Caboco Wapichan. Among his productions as an artist, the following performances stand out: ‘Pajé-onça – hackeando a 33° Bienal de Artes de São Paulo’ (2018), “Sawé” (2018/19) at SESC-SP, ‘Vaievem’ (2019) at the Banco do Brasil Cultural Centre in São Paulo, ‘Vexoá’ (2020) at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, ‘Memórias de um Brasil Profundo’ (2019) at the Museu Afro Brasil. In 2019, she participated in the Arctic Amazon Symposium in Canada, and in 2021 in the Sydney Biennial in Australia, among others.

Ritó Natálio

Artist and researcher. Non-binary lesbian. Their practice combines writing and performance, whether in creation, teaching, research or the organisation of public programmes. They hold a PhD in Artistic Studies and Anthropology, with research on the relationship between language and geology, and the performative effects of the debate on the Anthropocene on perceptions of humanity and nature. Their research has resulted in a series of lecture-performances presented internationally in artistic spaces and academic contexts: ‘Antropocenas’ (2017) with João dos Santos Martins, ‘Geofagia’ (2018), ‘Fossil’ (2020) and “Spillovers” (2023), a fictionalised translation of ‘Lesbian peoples: Material for a Dictionary’ (1976), an iconic reference in lesbian feminism by Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig. He holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology (PUC-São Paulo) and a degree in Choreographic Arts (University of Paris VIII). He has published academic articles and artists’ texts and edited independent publications related to his research. In 2019, at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, he co-organised an indigenous film exhibition with indigenous filmmakers and curators, together with a collective platform of researchers and activists from Portugal, notably Ailton Krenak.

Since 2020, Ritó has been the coordinator of Terra Batida, a network of people, practices and knowledge in dispute with forms of ecological violence and policies of abandonment. He collaborated with the least network — an arts and ecology laboratory based in Geneva — with which he developed the “Peau Pierre” (Stone Skin) project, focusing on ecoqueer pedagogies in co-creation with local associations. He coordinated two four-monthly laboratories with Amador Ruiz Folini for young people between the ages of 18 and 25, in the context of the “Imagina” project of the Educational Service of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2022-23).

He is an associate artist of Associação Parasita, a structure funded by the Portuguese Republic – Ministry of Culture/Directorate-General for the Arts between 2023 and 2026.

Brisa Flow
Brisa de La Cordillera is a Mapurbe Marrona singer who mixes her rap with ancestral songs, jazz, electronic and neo/soul. Better known as Brisa Flow, she is a transdisciplinary artist who works with musical languages and is active on the artistic scene as a singer, music producer, performer and researcher. She constructs art from the experience of her body in the world, creating paths that break free from the shackles of coloniality. Her music is an encounter with the energies of the Earth. She develops artistic aesthetics through the practice and research of singing that weaves together memories and original futures. She is also an art educator with a degree in Music. An MC of hip hop culture and daughter of Araucanian artisans, she researches and defends contemporary indigenous music, the art of native peoples and rap as necessary tools to combat epistemicide.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

An exhibition by Denilson Baniwa
Curated by Ritó Natálio | Terra Batida
In collaboration with Laila Algaves Nuñez and Rafaela Campos

Curatorial research: (2024) Ellen Pirá Wassu and Ritó Natálio

Dialogues in Residence: António Gouveia, Associação Batoto Yetu Portugal, Carla Coimbra, ECO – Animals and Plants in Cultural Productions about the Amazon Basin, Jamille Dias, Karen Shiratori, Neil Safier, National Museum of Ethnology, National Museum of Natural History and Science, Science Museum of the University of Coimbra, National Archive of Torre do Tombo

Technical direction: Ricardo Pimentel

Exhibition design: Ricardo Pimentel, Denilson Baniwa and Ritó Natálio

Image capture: Violena Ampudia

Additional images: Olinda Yawar Tupinambá, Ziel Karapotó, Jamille Dias, Laila Algaves Nuñez, Ritó Natálio
Editing: Ian Capillé

Graphic support: Nayara Siler

Executive production: Associação Parasita

Co-production and hosting: Alkantara Festival, Galerias Municipais / EGEAC

Production direction: Catalina Lescano / Associação Parasita

Administrative support: Helena Baronet / Associação Parasita

Exhibition support: The PIPA Foundation

Partnership: EDGES – Entangling Indigenous Knowledges in Universities

Acknowledgements: Carla Coimbra, Lysandra Domingues, Jamille Dias, Marta Lourenço

PARASITA is a structure funded by the Portuguese Republic – Ministry of Culture/Directorate-General for the Arts and, since 2024, by the Lisbon City Council – CML/RAAML.