photo: Chaman Yanomami, Amazonas, Venezuela – Barbara Crane Navarro
Comme le dit le porte-parole des Yanomami Davi Kopenawa dans son livre “La chute du ciel”: “Pour nos aînés, l’or n’était que des flocons brillants sur le sable des lits des cours d’eau, comme du mica. Ils l’ont recueilli pour en faire une substance de sorcellerie destinée à aveugler les personnes avec lesquelles ils étaient en colère. … Cette poussière de métal était très redoutée. C’est pourquoi nous appelons les éclats de métal brillant que les mineurs d’or extraient des lits des rivières oru hipëre a – la sorcellerie aveuglante de l’or. Lorsque les Blancs arrachent des minéraux du sol, ils les broient avec leurs machines, puis les chauffent dans leurs usines… L’or et les autres minéraux sont des choses dangereuses et maléfiques qui n’apportent que la maladie et la mort. … Bien que ce métal soit le plus beau et le plus solide qu’ils puissent trouver pour construire leurs machines et leurs marchandises, il est dangereux pour les êtres humains. En creusant si loin sous terre, les Blancs ne pensent pas à de telles choses. S’ils le faisaient, ils ne déchireraient pas sans cesse tout ce qu’ils peuvent de la terre. Je veux leur faire entendre les mots que le xapiri m’a donnés au temps du rêve afin que ces étrangers irréfléchis puissent comprendre ce qui se passe réellement.
Les chamans Yanomami ne travaillent pas pour de l’argent comme le font les médecins des Blancs. Ils agissent simplement pour que le ciel et la forêt restent en place, afin que nous puissions chasser, planter nos jardins et vivre en bonne santé. Nos anciens ne connaissaient pas l’argent. … L’argent ne nous protège pas… il ne crée pas notre joie. Pour les Blancs, c’est différent. Ils ne savent pas rêver avec les esprits comme nous le faisons. Ils préfèrent ignorer que le travail des chamans consiste à protéger la terre, autant pour nous et nos enfants que pour eux et les leurs. “
About Barbara Crane Navarro - Rainforest Art Project
I'm a French artist living near Paris.
From 1968 to 1973 I studied at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, then at the San Francisco Art Institute in San Francisco, California, for my BFA.
My work for many decades has been informed and inspired by time spent with indigenous communities. Various study trips devoted to the exploration of techniques and natural pigments took me originally to the Dogon of Mali, West Africa, and subsequently to Yanomami communities in Venezuela and Brazil.
Over many years, during the winters, I studied the techniques of traditional Bogolan painting. Hand woven fabric is dyed with boiled bark from the Wolo tree or crushed leaves from other trees, then painted with mud from the Niger river which oxidizes in contact with the dye.
Through the Dogon and the Yanomami, my interest in the multiplicity of techniques and supports for aesthetic expression influenced my artistic practice. The voyages to the Amazon Rainforest have informed several series of paintings created while living among the Yanomami. The support used is roughly woven canvas prepared with acrylic medium then textured with a mixture of sand from the river bank and lava. This supple canvas is then rolled and transported on expeditions into the forest. They are then painted using a mixture of acrylic colors and Achiote and Genipap, the vegetal pigments used by the Yanomami for their ritual body paintings and on practical and shamanic implements.
My concern for the ongoing devastation of the Amazon Rainforest has inspired my films and installation projects. Since 2005, I've created a perfomance and film project - Fire Sculpture - to bring urgent attention to Rainforest issues. To protest against the continuing destruction, I've publicly set fire to my totemic sculptures. These burning sculptures symbolize the degradation of nature and the annihilation of indigenous cultures that depend on the forest for their survival.
Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News and commented:
As Yanomami spokesperson Davi Kopenawa says in his book “The Falling Sky”: “For our elders, gold was just shiny flakes on the sand of stream beds, like mica . They collected it to make a witchcraft substance meant to blind the people they were angry with. … This metal dust was dreaded. This is why we call the shards of shiny metal that gold miners extract from river beds oru hipëre a- the blinding witchcraft of gold. When whites pull minerals from the ground, they grind them with their machines, then heat them in their factories… Gold and other minerals are dangerous and evil things that only bring disease and death. … Although this metal is the most beautiful and strongest they can find to build their machines and their goods, it is dangerous for human beings. By digging so far underground, whites do not think of such things. If they did, they wouldn’t endlessly tear up all they can of the earth. I want to make them hear the words that thexapiri gave me to the dream time so that these thoughtless strangers can understand what is really going on.
Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News and commented:
As Yanomami spokesperson Davi Kopenawa says in his book “The Falling Sky”: “For our elders, gold was just shiny flakes on the sand of stream beds, like mica . They collected it to make a witchcraft substance meant to blind the people they were angry with. … This metal dust was dreaded. This is why we call the shards of shiny metal that gold miners extract from river beds oru hipëre a- the blinding witchcraft of gold. When whites pull minerals from the ground, they grind them with their machines, then heat them in their factories… Gold and other minerals are dangerous and evil things that only bring disease and death. … Although this metal is the most beautiful and strongest they can find to build their machines and their goods, it is dangerous for human beings. By digging so far underground, whites do not think of such things. If they did, they wouldn’t endlessly tear up all they can of the earth. I want to make them hear the words that thexapiri gave me to the dream time so that these thoughtless strangers can understand what is really going on.
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