Amazons. The Ancestral Future

Amazonia is the largest repository of biodiversity worldwide and home to a tenth of all the species on the planet. It is also a region under threat which, consisting as it does of a complex and delicate layer of relations between different lifeforms, enables us to grasp the extreme fragility of our environment in these times of climate collapse.

A belief that the solution for the future of Amazonia – and by extension of the entire planet – has always existed there, in the legacy of the ancestors, runs through the activist thinking of the Indigenous peoples who have formulated the collective concept of the ancestral future. Only a reconnection with nature and the questioning of human supremacy can break with a narrative anchored in the idea of progress underpinned by a linear concept of time incompatible with the cyclical timeframes of Indigenous cultures.

This is a project conceived in Amazonia – thanks to the interweaving of the voices and actions of artists, activists, thinkers, historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, filmmakers and curators, among others – that takes the form of a possible journey across an alternative map. The Amazon region is a complex universe that belongs to nine different countries, which retain their borders drawn during the processes of colonisation that do not correspond with their original territories. It is not possible to speak of a single Amazon, hence the plural in the title, which aims to reflect the entire diversity of forms of resistance that make up a reality that cannot be reduced to a single monolithic concept.

An attempt to decolonise the memory and the present of this region demands that we question the hitherto rigid hierarchies of the Western rationale to incorporate that ancient wisdom that emanates from the centre of the world. Perhaps it is not too late to imagine an open dialogue between Indigenous knowledge and scientific thinking.

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The exhibition is organized by the San Telmo Museum and produced by the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). Claudi Carreras is the curator.

They have collaborated with the commissioner: Carlos Valério Aguiar Gomes, Eliane Brum, Emilio Fiagama, Lilian Fraiji, Nelly Kuiru Castro, João Paulo Lima Barreto, Eduardo Góes Neves, Daiara Tukano, Rember Yahuarcani, Joseph Zárate.

Artistic installations: Andrés Cardona, Emilio Fiagama, Colectivo MAHKU (Ibã Sales Huni Kuin, Kássia Valéria de Oliveira Borges, Acelino Sales Huni Kuin, Yaka Sales Huni Kuin), Elías Mamallacta, Cordelia Sánchez, Olinda Silvano, Rember Yahuarcani

Works: Lalo de Almeida, Alberto César Aráujo, Ashuco, Higinio Bautista, Rafa Bqueer, Luiz Braga, Sérgio Carvalho, CEA, Chicha ADS, Coletivo Água (Pablo Albarenga, Soll Sousa y Mariana Greif), Rosalba Cuelo, Paulo Desana, Estúdio Bijari, Laíza Ferreira, Nicola Ókin Frioli, Yefferson Huamán, Karl Joseph, Emi Kondo, Pedro Martinelli, Leydy Martínez Panduro, Monky, Victor Moriyama, Musuk Nolte, Jorge Panchoaga, Gerardo Petsain, Berna Reale, Lili Sandoval Panduro, Leslie Searle, Gena Steffens, Marc Alexandre Tareu, Tawna (Nixon Andy, Tatiana López, Enoc Merino Santi, Boloh Miranda, Sani Montahuano, Mukutsawa Montahuano, Lucía Villaruel), Daiara Tukano, Iván Valencia, Wara Vargas, Márcio Vasconcelos, Versus Photo (Gihan Tubbeh, Musuk Nolte, Renzo Giraldo), Gê Viana, Fernando Vilchez, Zecarrillo, eta Peruko Bora y artesanos de las comunidades Bora, Kukama, Urarina de Perú.

Guided tours and activities

The museum has organized activities around the exhibition and the topics it addresses: guided tours, conferences, screenings, performances...

• Check the activities here (in spanish)