Ancestral Futures

Principal delegates: Jeremy Narby and Daniela Zyman
Respondent: Ernesto Neto, Delzimar Acrino Yawanawa, Damian Christinger

The cosmogonic reversal of evolution, and the role of beings therein, invites a radical rethinking of what was called modern and rational for over four centuries. In the pluriversal explosion we are experiencing today, with the rising concern for ecology and climate change, we can no longer imagine nature being “outside,” outside of us, outside of the polis, outside of thinking — an outside that signifies the non-human, the other, the external. Within this context, indigenous communities have very much become a new avant-garde rather than the “blind spots” of modernity — as the guardians of life, these resilient communities have maintained deep connections to all forms of life. They are those who have resisted the forces of the global, and who have faced and learned the skills of survival and reinvention.

The Huni Kuin, Yawanawa, and Tukano who are participating in Neto’s MotherGaiaTree are acutely aware of their planetary mission, as ambassadors of the forest (the Amazonian rainforest) and delegates from the past and future. Their rituals, songs, stories, and their sheer presence are a contribution to the vibrant platform of research, learning, production, and dissemination that Neto initiated about four years ago, and since then has supported in both Western artistic environments as well as in the Amazon. Neto along with his Amerindian collaborators have produced and continue to produce rigorous forms of research, new artistic and scientific expressions which serve as example to forms of situated and embodied knowledges very much needed today.