This recent blog assignment required our class to visit the Amazonia exhibit at MOA. This exhibit is only going to be at the museum for a limited time, and it also tied together nicely with what we were currently doing in our global citizen courses. Going to the museum was part of my list of things to do on campus, but I never had the chance to go until now.

When I got there, the side that I entered the exhibit from was the side that had the hammocks for museum patrons to lie in as well as walls decorated with artwork from elementary schools with the messages about being mindful of the environment, and recognizing that the environment is something that need to be protected. This ties in with the exhibit since not only was the exhibit showcasing the culture of the people who lived in the amazon rainforest, it was also to convey the message of the destruction of a group of people’s ways of life due to the modernization of mankind thought mining coal and deforestation. Along the back wall were the terrible facts of the acts of cruelty and injustices the people of the rainforest had to endure. Illegal deforestation along with invasion of land due to coal mining operations are some examples. Targeted assassinations of indigenous people were also common as well.

Aside from the cold, depressing part of the exhibit, the exhibit was very fascinating. The museum did an amazing job with displaying the various items of the indigenous people of the rainforest to even going as far as playing music to create the feeling that you were also in the rainforest. Animal noises and indigenous songs and instruments were played to create the feeling that you yourself were exploring the rainforest in person. They even had hammocks that you could lay in since the indigenous people used those to sleep in. The display cases housed many objects from toys and trinkets to weapons used for hunting and gathering. There were also masks and costumes and headdresses made from bird feathers used for special occasions. I noticed that the indigenous people of the amazon used quite a lot of bird feathers in their clothing since birds were very common in the rainforests and the amount of clothing that they wore was also extremely minimalistic compared to the clothing that their brethren wore here in Canada since the temperatures were considerably more warm and humid.

Out of all the exhibits showcased, the ones that made the biggest impression on me were the news articles from a few decades ago depicting the meeting between an electrical company and the indigenous people. In those articles were the picture of the meeting were one of the indigenous people caressed the face of one of the workers (or ‘slaps’ in one of the other articles). This was displayed to show the struggles the indigenous people suffered. This was also evident in the various backgrounds used by the museum when displaying objects within the cases. On display case had empty bullet shells as the background. This was to represent the mass genocide and invasions of land for military bases that happened. Another had coal as its background which was to represent the various coal mining operations that popped up all over the rainforest. With these displays, the exhibit tis trying to construct the message about how the modernizing world came and invaded this land and ruined the lives of many indigenous people living within the rainforest.