Claudia Andujar & The Yanomami

Resulting from the collaboration between artist and activist Claudia Andujar and the Yanomami people, the photographic work presented here forms part of an ongoing movement of resistance and solidarity. Created in dialogue with Yanomami leaders, like the shaman Davi Kopenawa, it stands as a call for recognition and respect for their way of life.

The installation unfolds in two parts. In the early 1970s, Andujar photographed in the Brazilian section of Yanomami territory, seeking to convey the beauty and complexity of life in the forest, as well as the depth of shamanic spirituality. Her work was interrupted when she was expelled from the region by Brazil’s military regime (1964–1985), following her public denunciation of state-led violence against the Yanomami. In the 1980s, she rephotographed parts of her archive as a form of protest against the fragmented demarcation of the Yanomami Indigenous Territory—an act of resistance that contributed to the eventual recognition of a continuous territory in 1992.

Today, the exhibition also operates as a platform through which the Yanomami people can be seen and heard beyond their lands, at a time when the intensification of violence against Indigenous communities and the global climate crisis place their lives at renewed risk.

Support: Instituto Moreira Salles, Hutukara Associação Yanomami, Instituto Socioambiental

Image: Guest adorned with hawk's down, during a reahu feast, Catrimani, Roraima, Yanomami Indigenous Land, Brazil, 1974 - Instituto Moreira Salles Collection