Feito de folhas e penas [Made of Leaves and Feathers] took place at Espaço do Conhecimento UFMG from October to December 2O22. During this period and in the same place, the exhibition Mundos Indígenas [Indigenous Worlds] was on display, which was a milestone in the city of Belo Horizonte for occupying an exhibition space with the ancestral poetics and cosmopolitics of five native Brazilian peoples — Yanomami, Ye'kwana, Xakriabá, Maxakali and Pataxoop.
The exhibition Feito de folhas e penas intended to expand the indigenous worlds that already inhabited the museum, including the research of two important representatives of the Tupinambá and Pataxó peoples: Glicéria and Japira.
Glicéria Tupinambá is from the Serra do Padeiro village, located in the Tupinambá de Olivença Indigenous Land, in the Brazilian state of Bahia. Glicéria participates intensely in Tupinambá's political and spiritual life, which resulted in the cosmopolitical process of the retake of the knowledge about the making of Assojaba Tupinambá.
Assojaba Tupinambá is the ancestral feather mantle of the Tupinambá people. With the advent of the colonization and the resulting material, spiritual and epistemological violence suffered by indigenous peoples, the process of making Assojaba was lost in time. Based on a spiritual journey along with the research being made — which started from the connection with the elders of her community, with the enchanted beings her people refer to and with ethnographic museums in Europe, which had ancient examples of the mantle in their collections — the artist Glicéria Tupinambá built the way back from the Tupinambá mantle to its people.
Cacique Babau — indigenous leader of the Tupinambá people — wearing the Assojaba made for him by Glicéria Tupinambá.
Drawings by Gustavo Caboco, who illustrated the spiritual journey of the retake of Assojaba by the Tupinambá people.
Japira Pataxó was born in the Barra Velha village, in the state of Bahia. Japira had early contact with great masters and leaders of her people. Based on the ancestral knowledge she acquired in these encounters, she published her first book in 2O22, in which she gathers her knowledge about the medicinal uses of herbs and plants present in the ancestral territories of the Pataxó people.
Saberes dos Matos Pataxó is presented by Japira based on the reunion of her drawings and reports on plants, animals and enchanted creatures that form the biomes related to Pataxó life. In this precious material, the artist and master of traditional knowledge shares her expertise about handling, cataloging and disseminating the care and healing power of plants and their biomes.
[In order of appearance] A mata atlântica; A restinga; As mandiocas; O brejo. A aldeia Pataxó e a aldeia dos Encantados; O brejo II; A capoeira; A mata atlântica II.
ORGANIZATION
Pró-reitoria de Cultura da UFMG,
Espaço do Conhecimento UFMG.
CURATORSHIP
Augustin de Tugny, Glicéria
Tupinambá, Renata Marquez.
DESIGN AND PRODUCTION
Augustin de Tugny, Emir Lucresia,
Luiza Reis do Nascimento,
Paula Lobato, Renata Marquez.