Amazonart · Conquering Self-Representation: A Collaborative Approach to the Aesthetical-Political Dimension of Amazonian Contemporary Art
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-09-01 → 2021-08-31
- EU contribution
- €224,934
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-CAR
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Conquering Self-Representation: A Collaborative Approach to the Aesthetical-Political Dimension of Amazonian Contemporary Art
The action “Conquering Self-Representation: A Collaborative Methodology towards Political Aesthetical Dimension of Amazonian Art” (Amazonart) is an interdisciplinary and intersectorial project that explores the work, trajectories and activism of indigenous Amazonian contemporary artists as they enter global art circuits. It also produces new curatorial narratives through a collaborative methodology with Amazonian artists responding to their aim of self-representation. Amazonart draws on my on-going collaborations with Amazonian artists and on my background in the fields of anthropology, museum studies and cultural policies. This research posits that to understand the practices of Amazonian contemporary artists and their contributions to the art world and society at large we need, firstly, to engage in fieldwork not only in indigenous communities but also in urban centres and at transnational scale, addressing the condition of mobility of these practices and their aesthetic influences across places and circuits. Secondly, we need to attend not only to its relation to shamanic practices but also to the large spectrum of agendas that these works mobilise. Thirdly, we need to work in an interdisciplinary and collaborative way, surpassing traditional pigeonholing and understanding the contributions of Amazonian art to new art narratives and world-making at large. This research has three main objectives: objective 1: To explore and theorise the aesthetical-political dimension of Amazonian contemporary art; objective 2: To familiarise European museums with the work of Amazonian contemporary artists developing new curatorial narratives and leading to urgent scrutiny of art categories; and objective 3: To develop a methodology that locates at the forefront collaborations with indigenous Amazonian artists in thinking, translating and showing together their contemporary art practices. Amazonart combines ethnographic fieldwork, digital ethnography and exhibition making, and employs participant observation, interviews and visual and textual analysis. Exhibitions in this project are crucial sites of collaboration, methodological innovation and knowledge production.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This project develops a novel theoretical and methodological approach to understand the work, trajectories and activism of indigenous Amazonian contemporary artists as they enter global art circuits and seeks to produce more suitable curatorial narratives. Over the last decade the field of contemporary art has expanded its boundaries through the integration of art practices from various parts of the globe including indigenous art. A significant scholarship has traced the practices and global articulations of Australian and North American indigenous artists, which have developed a strong circuit of art agents and stimulated readjustments in art historical narratives. Yet the global rise of other vibrant indigenous art practices requires immediate attention. This is the case of Amazonian contemporary art which is mobilising different aesthetics and agendas and proposing novel contributions to the arts and humanities at large. With a focus on Amazonian Peruvian artists, this project develops a novel approach to explore the work, trajectories and activism of indigenous Amazonian contemporary artists as they enter global art circuits. Its aim is to produce the first major study on Amazonian contemporary art that expands the current framework of analysis of art and shamanism to look at artists’ practices, agendas and mobility across the local, urban, national and global arenas and to propose more suitable vocabularies and curatorial narratives. It does this through an innovative collaborative methodology with Amazonian artists responding to their aim of self-representation. This MSCA action draws on my on-going collaborations with Amazonian artists and on my background in the fields of anthropology, museum studies and cultural policies. The participatory and interdisciplinary approach of this research seeks to contribute to dialogues amongst anthropology, art history and curatorial studies and benefit museum practices and policies in addressing indigenous art today.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX · ColchesterCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union