If there is a future to imagine, it is ancestral

…when we say “world,” we usually think of this one, a “world” in constant dispute triggered by a management that has metastasized: capitalism… The challenge I propose is to imagine cartographies, layers of worlds, in which the narratives are so diverse that we don’t have to come to blows when evoking different creation stories.

Ailton Krenak

Ailton’s writing brings together a constellation of Indigenous voices (Krenak, Yanomami, Guarani…) which document the mnemonic traditions at the heart of Indigenous life, based in abundance, celebration, the commons, and maintaining balance between spiritual and material life. This relational being stands apart from what he diagnoses as an imposed ‘civilizational’ knot; a metastasized capitalism, occupying the entire planet and infiltrating life in an uncontrollable way. He pulls apart the false universalism of the European, capitalist ideology of Man, ‘this sanitary and hygienic human figure, this configuration of the body that is merely a poor institution manufactured by a civilization without imagination.’ And in its place, he shares Indigenous practices of worlding.

The potência of the subject as collective, as always in flux and in the making, of being involved in the life of other beings: mountains, rivers, birds, a fish… How living through confluences opens up possibilities for other worlds. Or how moving through affective alliances, “which involves me and a constellation of people and beings through which I disappear……creates an affective bond between worlds that are not equal, but instead introduces a kind of radical inequality that forces us to pause”; continually making affective bond, alliances and meanings as a form of worlding, an opening to experiencing other worlds, cosmovisions and pluriverses.

Ailton will be also be taking part in the More than Perfect event on Friday 15th November.

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Bio

Ailton Krenak is considered one of the great leaders of the Brazilian indigenous movement. Since the 1980’s he’s been instrumental in bringing together the 180 different indigenous tribes of Brazil in multiple collective formations, as well as overcoming historical tensions between the indigenous peoples and the rubber tappers, to collectively organise against the capitalist bondage of the future.

He famously functioned as a representative of indigenous peoples at the debates on the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, where he ritually painted his face during a speech. You can see a video of this moment here. This speech/ performance helped defeat the political slight of hand that would have ‘granted’ indigenous peoples’ Brazilian citizenship and rights, as a way to remove their immanent sociality and any claims they had to their traditional lands, thus opening those lands up to extraction and exploitation.

He either co-founded or participated in multiple indigenous rights organisations, such as the União dos Povos Indígenas (Union of Indigenous Peoples), the Aliança dos Povos da Floresta (Alliance of Forest-dwelling Peoples), the Núcleo de Cultura Indígena (Nucleus of Indigenous Culture), among others. From 2003 to 2010, Krenak was special aide for indigenous affairs to the governor of Minas Gerais. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, where he teaches about culture, history and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples. In October 2023, he was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, being the first indigenous Brazilian to join the institution.

He has published over 15 books. Some of them have been translated into more than 13 languages. In recognition of his intellectual contributions, he was honoured with the prestigious Juca Pato award for ‘intellectual of the year’ by the Brazilian Writers Union in 2020. Presently, he resides in the Krenak Indigenous Reserve, situated in the municipality of Resplendor, Minas Gerais.

Amilcar Packer was born in Santiago de Chile, 1974, and lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil, since 1982. Packer unfolds an experimental and non-disciplinary art and collaborative research-based practice, informed by curatorial and editorial operations, in view of transformative social justice. His work seeks to intervene in artistic, political and social imaginaries by the means of mid and long-term public programs, presentations and debates, workshops, study groups, online platforms and archives, research trips, and editing, translation and free distribution of texts and publications (printed and online). He graduated in Philosophy at USP (1999), has a MA in Clinical Psychology at PUC-SP (2015), and is currently enrolled in a PhD at the Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, at the University of British Columbia.

As a curator, he organized exhibitions in institutions such as the Centre Rhénan d’Art Contemporain (Altkirch, France, 2022/2023), Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia (Salvador 2018), Centro de Arte Hélio Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2017/ 18), Ludlow 38, New York, USA; He co-organized artistic-curatorial initiatives and platforms such as Ventres da Mata Atlántica (2018) and EhChO (2020/2022), and was co-director of the artistic residency program CAPACETE, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 2012/2013.

As an artist, he has participated in group shosw such as: “Abduction” (Oslo, Norway, 2020), “Incerteza Viva – 32nd São Paulo Biennial (2016); “Modifiy as Needed”, MOCA, Miami, USA. (2011); “Práxis: Art in Times of Uncertainty – 2nd Thessaloniki Biennale of Art” (Thessaloniki, Grécia, 2009); “Farewell Postcolonialism – 3rdGuangzhou Triennial, China (2008); “On Reason and Emotion”, 14th Sydney Biennale, Australia (2004).

Part of his practice takes place in educational and art mediation programs at institutions such as The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark (2024; 2023; 2022; 20217); ENSBA, Paris, France (2013); “History Matter” (2012), CCA-Lagos, Nigeria; Hobart and Launceston Schools of Arts, Tasmania, Australia; “1st Pernambucan Week of the Arts” (2001), Recife, Brazil.