Author Archives: Barbara Crane Navarro - Rainforest Art Project

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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.

Why It’s So Hard To Imagine Life After Capitalism!? — msamba

Get your first month of Audible absolutely free and listen to the audiobook that inspired this episode, Mark Fisher’s “Capitalist Realism.” Visit https://audible.com/secondthought or text secondthought to 500-500 There’s a common expression, “it’s easier to imagine the end of the … Continue reading

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Pergunta do presente de Natal? – Se garimpeiros estivessem garimpando ouro em seu quintal e contaminando sua única fonte de água com mercúrio, você ainda se decoraria com jóia de ouro?

Precisamos repensar nossa relação com todo o mundo vivo e não mais pensar como consumidores em uma economia, mas reconhecer que somos organismos em um ecossistema. Os povos indígenas utilizam a água dos rios e córregos em seus territórios ancestrais … Continue reading

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As Biodiversity Degrades, Nature’s Solutions Are Lost for Ever! — HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch 18 December 2022 (UN News)* — Humanity faces unprecedented engineering challenges if it is to survive. Solutions to these challenges are waiting to be discovered in plants, animals, and microbes, but these could be lost forever, if … Continue reading

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Question cadeau de Noël ? – Si des prospecteurs cherchaient de l’or dans votre arrière-cour et contaminaient votre seule source d’eau avec du mercure, vous décoreriez-vous toujours avec des bijoux en or ?

Nous devons repenser notre relation avec l’ensemble du monde vivant et ne plus penser comme des consommateurs dans une économie mais reconnaître que nous sommes des organismes dans un écosystème. Les peuples autochtones utilisent l’eau des rivières et des ruisseaux … Continue reading

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‘We Indigenous Peoples Are Rights-Holders, Not Stakeholders’! — HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch By Jennifer Tauli Corpuz and Stanley Kimaren Ole Riamit* One year after Dec 8 2022 (IPS)* – After four failed rainy seasons, the land of the Maasai has withered. The worst drought in 40 years is a … Continue reading

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Holiday Gift Question? – If prospectors were digging for gold in your back yard and contaminating your only source of water with mercury, would you still decorate yourself with gold jewelry? 

We need to reconsider our relationship with all of the living world and no longer think like consumers in an economy but recognize that we are organisms in an ecosystem. Indigenous peoples use the water in the rivers and streams … Continue reading

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Here are 13 Reasons Why You Should Boycott Gold For The Yanomami People! — Palm Oil Detectives

Hunger for Gold in the Global North is fueling a living hell in the Global South. Here are 13 reasons why you should #BoycottGold4Yanomami 13 Reasons Why You Should Boycott Gold For The Yanomami People — Palm Oil Detectives

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Un messaggio per i decisori della COP28: « La terra non appartiene all’uomo, l’uomo appartiene alla terra. L’uomo non ha tessuto la trama della vita, è solo un filo. Qualunque cosa faccia alla rete della vita, la fa a se stesso. » 

« Stai insegnando ai tuoi figli quello che noi abbiamo insegnato ai nostri figli? Che la terra è nostra madre? Ciò che accade alla terra accade a tutti i figli della terra. Sappiamo che la terra non appartiene all’uomo, l’uomo appartiene … Continue reading

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By February 1st – What has happened to all those cut down Christmas trees? — Paul Noël

I posted this on February the 1st 2020. If you bought a Christmas tree for this year it’s something to think about. Since February 1st 2020, all those cut down Christmas trees must be rotting away somewhere releasing CO2 into … Continue reading

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Un mensaje a los responsables de la toma de decisiones de la COP28: « La tierra no es del hombre, el hombre pertenece a la tierra. El hombre no ha tejido la telaraña de la vida, es solo un hilo. Todo lo que hace con la red de la vida, él se hace esto a sí mismo. »

«¿Les está enseñando a sus hijos lo que nosotros les enseñamos a nuestros hijos? ¿Que la tierra es nuestra madre? Lo que le pasa a la tierra le pasa a todos los hijos de la tierra. Sabemos que la tierra … Continue reading

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