Glicéria Tupinambá Becomes First Indigenous Artist to Represent Brazil at Venice Biennale

The Brazilian Pavilion, has for this version been retitled the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion. Its identify derives from the Pataxó folks’s phrase for the territory now often called Brazil previous to its colonization by the Portuguese.

Glicéria, a member of the Tupinambá people, will stage a presentation called “Ka’a Pûera: we are walking birds,” a reference to the capoeira, a bird that can disguise itself in the forests that the Tupinambá hold dear. Those same forests are subject to destruction by corporate forces seeking to use them for agricultural means, of which Glicéria has been an outspoken opponent.

Within Brazil, Glicéria is known both as an artist and an activist. In 2010, she was imprisoned, along with her baby, for two months after speaking out about instances of police brutality, raising alarm among human rights groups. She focuses on preserving Tupinambá culture, and even uses her films in her fight. One work currently on view at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo focuses on the production of cloaks that are significant to Tupinambá culture.

Her Venice Biennale presentation will be curated by Arissana Pataxó, Denilson Baniwa, and Gustavo Caboco Wapichana. In a statement, the curators said: " the pavilion explores the notion that we remember those who are on the margins, deterritorialised, invisibilised, imprisoned, and whose territorial rights have been violated, but who call us to resistance, believing that we are human- birds-memory-nature, because there is always the possibility of resurgence and resistance.”

Main Image: Glicéria Tupinambá, courtesy Fundação Bienal de São Paulo