Politics and Poetics of the Rainforest

The protagonism of flora and fauna in contemporary Amazonian art shows the central role the territory and its biodiversity play as spaces of enunciation of Indigenous knowledge. Amerindian ontologies are based upon horizontal and affective relations between local communities and all forest entities, regarded as subjects with their own agency and sensibility.

Respect for the natural world is part of the visual narratives of Amazonian artists from diverse provenances. An example are the owners or mothers of plants, animals and other beings that protect the forest, which are invisible to Western eyes, but which are part and parcel of everyday life and of the epistemologies of Indigenous peoples. These entities from the environment inhabit myths, rituals and cosmologies and materialize in the work of the artists. Art contributes in this way to reveal the deep connections between these populations and the natural world.