Contesting Extractivism through Amazonian Indigenous Artivism: Decolonial reflections on possibilities for crafting a pluriverse from within

Abstract

This article provides an analysis of Amazonian Indigenous peoples’ “artivism” – understood as artistic expressions with activist orientation. It approaches artivism within the context of the emergence of Contemporary Indigenous Art in Brazil and its significance in the resistance against the centuries-long oppression of native peoples, illustrated by the advancement of extractivism in the Amazon. We focus on the artworks by four prominent Indigenous artivists: Jaider Esbell’s critical engagements with art history; Denilson Baniwa’s reanthropophagy movement; Daiara Tukano’s critique of articide; and Emerson Pontes’ transformation into Uýra, the Walking Tree. Altogether, the messages embedded in their artworks contest the dominant growth-oriented development narrative anchored on the pre-eminence of the human-nature ontological dualism, where Nature is reduced to economic resource, along with a view of development that positions western ways of knowing, being and living at the forefront of a civilizational continuum. We conclude by elucidating the central decolonizing role of Indigenous artivism and its potential to strengthen Indigenous’ voices and agendas which include exercising self-determination, resisting extractivism, and crafting more plural and just worlds.