Exhibition in Brazil gathers Latin American indigenous artists to address the environment

Silent Spring features artists from Latin America, prpoposing to seek inspiration in indigenous viewpoints for new relationships with the environment.

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, Luciana Brito opens the group show Primavera Silenciosa [Silent Spring] in São Paulo, curated by Alexia Tala. Presenting paintings, sculptures, site-specific installations, photography, and tapestry by a selection of artists from Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Panama, the exhibition’s programming includes, a cycle of film projections and an afternoon of talks with guests to discuss issues related to ecology and artistic productions that deal with this theme.

Primarily through eight years of research she carried out as the chief curator of the 22nd Bienal de Arte Paiz (Guatemala) and as the deputy curator of its 20th edition, Alexia Tala has become deeply acquainted with the Latin American world of visual arts. During this period, she uncovered narratives that shape not only the region’s core identity but also the social and cultural constructs of the indigenous peoples. These narratives point to trends and position artists and their poetic expressions. Some of these artists are featured in the exhibition Primavera Silenciosa [Silent Spring], an ambitious project by Luciana Brito Galeria, based on planning and research trips undertaken since 2020.

The show is based on curatorial research focused on Latin America, with an emphasis on Central America, bringing together artistic expressions rooted in cultures that are intrinsically connected with the places they belong to. The artworks featured in the show were chosen with the aim of celebrating plurality as well as a conscious relationship of listening and contemplating nature – where there is space for criticism and a strengthening of ways of seeing and living in the world related to a healthier and more sustainable relationship with the environment. The perspectives presented in the show include those of artists from the Mayan Tz’utujil, Mayan Kakchiquel, and Mapuche indigenous cultures.

The exhibition’s title comes from a 1962 book by Rachel Carson concerning the theme of environmental pollution, advancing a delicate and poetic allegory as a warning: the story foretells a future where birds no longer sing. At the exhibition, visitors will see that even while Carlson’s viewpoint was innovative for European and Anglo-American thought in 1962, the Latin American peoples had already, for centuries, been harboring worldviews and ways of living that offer healthier ways of relating to the ecosystem.

The exercises of raising awareness proposed by Primavera Silenciosa look to coexistence as a key piece in a process of seeking more harmonious ways of integrating with the ecosystem, spurring us to reflect on the agency we all bear in our ability to transform in light of the environmental crisis.

Artworks include productions by Antonio Pichillá (Guatemala), a Mayan Tz’utujil artist whose site-specific work installs a representation of a sacred serpent in the gallery’s garden, and Adán Vallecillo (Honduras), who produces portable and collectible records that encapsulate pigments removed from what represents a serious environmental problem: trash. The show also features new paintings by Paula Nicho and Diego Isaías Hernández, both Mayan Tz’utujil artists from Guatemala who use the aesthetics of popular painting to depict distinctive aspects of the local landscapes and the collective imagination of their people.

The delicateness of a hummingbird shown in a video close-up by Donna Conlon (Panama) is a reflection not only on the death of species but also on our possibility of taking action in regard to this issue. Artist Benvenuto Chavajay (Mayan Tz’utujil, Guatemala) presents a sequence of photographs that outline a mapping of sacred elements and rituals as the outcome of a process that primarily – even before being artistic – is developed by the artist as an ancestral healing ritual.

While most of the works deal with ecology, the exhibition also presents works that convey indigenous worldviews in a broader sense, along with fundamental identity issues to be discussed when inserted in the context of contemporary art. For example, Colección Poyón, by Ángel and Fernando Poyón (Guatemala, Mayan Kakchiquel), consists of a cabinet of curiosities full of elements popularly associated with the Mayan identity, posing questions about cultural appropriation and emptying. For her part, Marilyn Boror Bor, another Mayan Kakchiquel artist from Guatemala, reinforces the reflection on cultural identity: her work Edicto Cambio de Nombre is her visceral take on the exchange of indigenous names for European names, presented in the form of a mourning process – her tombstones scattered throughout the gallery.

About Alexia Tala

Curator, researcher and art-critic specialized in Latin American art based between Chile and Brazil. She has wide experience curating biennials in the region. She was chief curator of the 22nd Paiz Art biennial – Guatemala 2021, and has co-curated the 1st Performance Biennial Deformes in Chile, 8th Mercosul biennial in Brazil, 4th Polygraphic Triennial of Latin America and the Caribbean and the 20nd Paiz Art biennial in Guatemala. She was also curator of the Latin American SOLO projects in the Sp-Arte art festival in Brazil. She is currently the artistic director of Plataforma Atacama.

Primavera Silenciosa
Curated by Alexia Tala

Curatorial assistant: Cecilia Vilela

Artists: Adán Vallecillo (Honduras), Ángel y Fernando Poyón (Guatemala), Antonio
Pichillá (Guatemala), Benvenuto Chavajay (Guatemala), Coletivo Tz’aqaat (Guatemala),
Diego Isaías Hernández (Guatemala), Donna Conlon (Panama), Héctor Zamora
(Mexico), Jonathan Harker (Panamá), Manuel Chavajay (Guatemala), Marilyn Boror Bor
(Guatemala), Naomi Rincón Gallardo (México), Paula Nicho (Guatemala), Paz Errázuriz
(Chile), Rastros de Diógenes (Brasil), Rochelle Costi (Brazil)

On view until December 20th, 2023 

Luciana Brito Galeria - Av. Nove de Julho, 5162

Website: www.lucianabritogaleria.com.br

Opening times: Mondays, 10AM - 6PM | Tuesdays to Fridays, 10AM - 7PM | Saturdays,
11AM - 5PM

On the cover: Donna Conlon, “From the Ashes”, 2019

Source: Luciana Brito Gallery