Millions of minks have been killed in Denmark due to a mutation in the coronavirus. Now the animal carcasses are causing a lot of trouble for the authorities. Millions of furry animals hurriedly buried break out of their graves: What looks like a scene from a horror film is real in Denmark – and forces […]
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.
The famous mink mutation was a saga only, after the killings it disappeared from the face of earth. They just wanted to get rid of the numerous mink farms, because they gave Denmark a bad reputation.
You are right, and I am against all fur farming and wearing, but the way this was done, was simply abominable. It had to be done so quickly as per request of our Minister of State, that some of the minks were burnt alive. I am thinking about the animals here, not the farmers.
Another point is the illegality of the procedure. In this case we might say it is good to get rid of the mink farms, so we accept that it was done illegally. But if we do that, we cannot complain next time, when the government does something illegal.
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Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News.
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The famous mink mutation was a saga only, after the killings it disappeared from the face of earth. They just wanted to get rid of the numerous mink farms, because they gave Denmark a bad reputation.
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Mink “farming” is a revolting industry. Wearing fur is abject and unconscionable.
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You are right, and I am against all fur farming and wearing, but the way this was done, was simply abominable. It had to be done so quickly as per request of our Minister of State, that some of the minks were burnt alive. I am thinking about the animals here, not the farmers.
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Another point is the illegality of the procedure. In this case we might say it is good to get rid of the mink farms, so we accept that it was done illegally. But if we do that, we cannot complain next time, when the government does something illegal.
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I don’t know if the abominable treatment of minks in the name of “luxury fashion” is illegal, but it’s certainly unethical.
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Well, I think the abominable treatment of minks is unethical, no matter who does it, legal or illegal.
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