indigenous movements
Rember Yahuarcani López
In this podcast we talk to Rember Yahuarcani López about what “contemporary indigenous art” means to him, and about his own path to finding his place in the market. From this position, he can speak of himself in the first person, expand the notion of contemporaneity, and preserve and translate the Uitoto worldview and the oral traditions he has inherited, in an attempt to leave the imprint of the ancestral memory of a community in danger of extinction. And in this sense painting—like myths—emerges as a magical activity.
Seba Calfuqueo
Liisa-Rávná Finbog
In this podcast, we talk with indigenous Sámi researcher, writer, curator and artist Liisa-Rávná Finbog about napkins, museums, collections, and colonialism, to challenge hierarchies, cultural extractivism, and the hidden violence in any process of cultural assimilation. We also highlight the causal relationship between art and coloniality, questioning the separation between function and aesthetics. Duodji thus emerges as an ancestral practice and knowledge system — that dismantles and emancipates itself from the Western construct of craft, while invoking a dialogical relationship with materiality. We open a portal to understand and share the ways of thinking, being, and existing in interdependence, of the Sámi people.
Eva Maria Fjellheim
In this podcast, Southern Saami researcher Eva Maria Fjellheim takes a close, personal experience—a photograph of her great-grandmother from her family album—as a point of departure to unpack the racist and colonial logics that gave rise to the stigma attached to Saami identity, and the prejudices that remain latent today. We talk about epistemicide, strategic ignorance and green colonialism, about ancestral practices that outlast us, and about the territory as a body.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of the conversation with artist, weaver, writer, poet and indigenous researcher Elvira Espejo Ayca that we were unable to include the first time around. We talked about the flow of linguistic structures and writing processes, introducing the notion of “oraliture” and the importance of the rhythm of song in the exchanges that take place in her community.