by Dianne Climenhage As you may be aware, the government recently passed legislation to make September 30th a federal statutory holiday called the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (TRC Day). For all Canadians, this day provides an opportunity for each person to recognize and commemorate the legacy of Residential Schools. For Indigenous peoples, this is a […]
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.
Excellent entry, like all yours! But you know what is being said to the facts, there is a long way. That is why the saying is well applied in this case. It is the legislators who must comply in their mandate with promulgating laws on the preservation and granting dominion of their lands to the native peoples, both in Brazil, as in Argentina and any other country in the world in which those who were the primal inhabitants of the earth. A cordial greeting.
Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News and commented:
I had a friend, now deceased, who designed the Truth and Reconciliation process for Bishop Tutu. Ketan Lakani was a genius, who left this earth too soon.
Pingback: Truth and Reconciliation Day: A Time to Listen — Peace and Justice Notebook — Barbara Crane Navarro – Tiny Life
Excellent entry, like all yours! But you know what is being said to the facts, there is a long way. That is why the saying is well applied in this case. It is the legislators who must comply in their mandate with promulgating laws on the preservation and granting dominion of their lands to the native peoples, both in Brazil, as in Argentina and any other country in the world in which those who were the primal inhabitants of the earth. A cordial greeting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News and commented:
I had a friend, now deceased, who designed the Truth and Reconciliation process for Bishop Tutu. Ketan Lakani was a genius, who left this earth too soon.
LikeLiked by 1 person