From the Arctic to the rainforests: MoCNA hosts duel exhibits examining communities, landscapes facing dramatic change
Mar. 31—Melting Arctic glaciers and Indigenous Amazon artwork reveal contrasting worlds facing dramatic change at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts.
The award-winning filmmaker Inuk Silis Høegh will debut his film installation "The Green Land" at a time when his homeland is undergoing drastic changes. In an adjacent gallery, "Womb of the Earth: Cosmovision of the Rainforest" showcases the works of Brazilian Indigenous female artists illustrating threats to their lives, cultures and homelands through deforestation, illegal mining, agriculture and development.
Høegh structured "The Green Land" around the classical four elements. The color green takes shape as fire, water, earth and air as it passes through a barren landscape resembling the Arctic, but which might be another planet. The color can be an alien threat or a salvation, depending on your perception of the landscape as pure or toxic.
The film asks whether we are witnessing a slow death or a new beginning — apocalypse or creation — or both.
"Most people would guess it's about climate change," said Manuela Well-Off-Man, museum chief curator. "It's also celebrating Greenland's nature. It also talks about human interference in nature."
The film is entirely handmade, without the help of computer manipulation, she added.
Høegh graduated from the Royal Danish Art Academy in 2010. His work has been shown in Greenland, Denmark, France, Iceland, Finland, Latvia and Germany.
Indigenous Brazilian women's collectives contributed the artwork to "Womb of the Earth: Cosmovision of the Rainforest."
"Often these are ceramic pieces, animal sculptures based on their mythology," Well-Off-Man said.
A snake carrying ceramic pots was inspired by the anaconda, who taught the people ceramics, she added.
A bright red beaded banner takes the form of a tree enmeshed with animals and plants to show the interconnectedness of every living thing. In a photograph, a Brazilian curator poses in body paint reflecting a 12,000-year-old petroglyph on the rock behind her.
"Many of the patterns are inspired by the animals you see in the rainforest," Well-Off-Man said.
The body paint also protects the wearer from insects.
What unites these artworks is the artists' interest in the close relationship between the human body/soul and surrounding nature, expressed through paintings and ceramics.
The exhibit is the first by Indigenous Brazilian artists to show at MoCNA.
"Womb of the Earth" explores the importance of Brazil's rainforest — one of the world's most biodiverse regions — for area tribes' physical and cultural survival, as well as the role of female artists in the struggle to preserve their homeland.
The show introduces three female collectives. Among these are Assurini and Awaete artists who render traditional female body painting patterns in acrylic on fabric.
To them, the rainforest represents the origins of life.
The exhibition was organized in dialogue with the artists and Brazilian co-curators Cristine Takuá and Anita Ekman.
