Takapau and Okara Assojabá: crossings between the territory and the Venice Biennale

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between art produced in Indigenous territories and its circulation within visual arts institutions, at the intersection of anthropology, art history, and the visual arts. It seeks to contribute to a reflection on the following question: how do the meaning, agency, and memory of Indigenous art manifest or transform in two works created by Indigenous artists, exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale? The focus is on the works Takapau, by the maori collective Mataaho, and Okará Assojabá, by Glicéria Tupinambá and the Tupinambá Community of Serra do Padeiro and Olivença, both rooted in collective knowledge and of great cultural value. These works—now exhibited as contemporary art—engage in a dialogue with objects that have moved between villages and ethnographic museums for decades or even centuries, simultaneously populating the imaginations of European colonizers.