Photo: Luiza Prado
Lamento Guaraní (Guaraní Lament)
Mostra performatus #2, Sesc, Santos, São Paulo, Brazil.
Curated by Paulo Aureliano da Mata and Tales Frey
A history of racism, expulsions, and collective suicides dating back to colonial times has marked and reduced the Guaraní population in Brazil. After the war with Paraguay ended in 1870, the Government of Brazil began to sell land, trampling on the rights of the native populations who lived and still live there. With the passage of time the situation of the Guaraní and other indigenous peoples of Brazil has worsened, since they have been evicted from their lands and massacred by gunmen in the service of agribusiness. In spite of this, the peaceful struggle for the rights and the demarcation of the territory of these ancestral populations, still stands.
I stand in the gallery carrying a Guaraní Kaiowá headdress covered in human blood.