Skin, paper, tiles: A cross-cultural history of Kadiwéu art

Abstract

This article focuses on the global traffic in images relating to Kadiwéu culture in South America, analysing the extent to which they are entangled in the group’s continuing sense of presence. It begins with Kadiwéu designs as they appeared in the sketchbook of the artist–explorer Guido Boggiani in the late 19th century. It then explores the mapping of Kadiwéu territory and the practices and protocols informing a politics of land rights, cultural property and economic survival, looking in particular at the commissioning of Kadiwéu designs for a housing estate and an associated exhibition in Berlin early in the 21st century. By developing a cross-cultural history of Kadiwéu art that considers the transnational networks across different times and spaces, including the case of a transcultural history of copyright, the article seeks to contribute to the ongoing re-thinking of the colonial visual archive and its afterlife.