On Tuesday we’ll get a guided tour of the new MOA exibit on Amazonia, given by Nuno Porto, the curator of the exhibit. The material is related to the kinds of issues we’ve been talking about, but from a very different perspective. I’m looking forward to the visit, and to your comments, which you can post here afterwards. Please meet me at the entrance of the Museum of Anthropology at 9:30am on Tuesday.
Also, remember that you need to email me your proposals and annotated bibliographies by Tuesday. I’ll be in my office on Monday from 12-3pm. guidelines for the proposals and projects are here. Please don’t hesitate to write if you have any questions or if we didn’t get a chance to chat last class.
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I thought that the Amazonia: The Rights of Nature was a very interesting exhibit to witness. The opportunity to learn about a curators thought process was something I hadn’t experienced before and am very grateful for. I walked through the exhibit acknowledging the content and forms of presentation throughout in the context of race in the Americas. To be fair I didn’t get a chance to read all of the descriptions for the objects presented. However what was very interesting to me was the power dynamic inherent in the relationship between the white Western curator and the Indigenous communities whose land he is attempting to capture for the MOA audience. While the Nuno Porto sourced much of the work presented, from organizations led by Indigenous communities themselves, it seemed important to note that Indigenous communities who call the Amazon home had no say in the representation of themselves or their land. It left me questioning how the curator saw reciprocity between the Indigenous communities he gathered information from, and himself/the MOA.
I worry that informing and educating western audiences about the way people are “over there” and how much help is needed to “save the planet”, invites the audience to participate in neo-colonial practices of saviourism, reinstating the superiority of Western knowledge. This sort of impulse was also evident in the use of hammocks in which the curator (not the folks who use these day to day) invites visitors to kick off their shoes and enjoy the hammock in the air conditioned space, exotifying through the decontextualizing of the geographic, cultural, and social significance and uses for hammocks ……
This becomes further problematized by the little focus on colonialism throughout. While Porto began the tour by acknowledging the limitations of law for the protection of the Amazon, I thought the theme of colonialism and imperialism and its effects on the land would thread through out the exhibition, as a way of recognizing the colonial and imperial legacies that created and maintain many of the irreversible damages done to the Amazon and the communities that call the Amazon home. The privately funded state sanctioned violence against Indigenous people and their land in the Amazon and Indigenous people and their land in Canada was a point that I thought would make sense, especially because the MOA is literally on unseeded territory.
I did like the track that was being played as well as the piece at the end with the colourful toys!