Ancestral Futures — Brazilian Contemporary Scene

  • Ancestral Futures — Brazilian Contemporary Scene Ancestral Futures presents a new and bold generation of artists working with photography, video,...

    Ancestral Futures — Brazilian Contemporary Scene

     

    Ancestral Futures presents a new and bold generation of artists working with photography, video, collage and AI to address contemporary Brazil society and history by reinterpreting its visual archives and traditions.
     
    The title of the show echoes indigenous philosopher and activist Ailton Krenak's book Ancestral Future, which challenges the Western idea of progress based on chronologically and linear time to propose a future that is built by looking back to essential elements of the past.
     
    With fierce irony and radical imagination, these artists dispute, remix and unarchive official histories to denounce the construction of stereotypes, the silencing of minorities and the violence against Afro-Brazilian, immigrant, indigenous and LGBTQIA+ peoples. Their political attitude is also expressed by challenging the integrity of the photographic frame.
     
    Artists like Denilson Baniwa, Ventura Profana, Gê Viana, Mayara Ferrão, Yhuri Cruz and Igi Lọ́lá Ayedun use photo collage and AI to refuse the white colonial gaze and create visual archives with new representations of beauty, affection and spirituality.
     
    Lakapoy Collective and filmmaker Lincoln Péricles narrate their stories through photographic archives built and preserved by their own communities.
     
    Artists such as Rafa Bqueer, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro and Melissa de Oliveira use straight photography and video to show how our bodies are also archival territories where ancestral and spiritual traditions are presented, disputed and revived.
     
    Indigenous leader Célia Tupinambá recovers the sewing tradition of the sacred Tupinambá cloak with the women of her village and denounces the European expropriation by reclaiming the return of the stolen cloaks to Brazil.
     
    A pioneer to this generation, Paulo Nazareth updates the postcard tradition with his performatic self-portraits that expose American society's prejudice and racism.
     
    These works confront the history of Catholic domination in order to glorify other saints and martyrs, who promote their collective spirituality as a tool for freedom and emancipation.

     

    Text / Thyago Nogueira

  • CURATOR：THYAGO NOGUEIRA Thyago Nogueira (São Paulo, Brazil, 1976) is the head of the Contemporary Art Department at Instituto Moreira Salles...

    Portrait of Thyago Nogueira © Isabel Praxedes

    CURATOR：THYAGO NOGUEIRA

     

    Thyago Nogueira (São Paulo, Brazil, 1976) is the head of the Contemporary Art Department at Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS), Brazil, and founding editor of ZUM magazine, published by IMS. He has curated numerous exhibitions such as Zanele Muholi: Corageous Beauty (2025), Daido Moriyama: A retrospective (2022-2025), Claudia Andujar: The Yanomami Struggle (2018-2024), Miguel Rio Branco: Dreamt Words... (2022), William Eggleston's The American Color (2015). He has also chaired many prizes, such as the Hasselblad Award, and contributed to numerous publications.

  • Rafa Bqueer, Frame from film Themônias, 2021. Courtesy of the artist, from Instituto Moreira Salles collection with support from 2020 ZUM/IMS Grant.

  • Ventura Profana, O bálsamo de Gileade [Gilead's Balsam], from Sonda [Probe] series,  2020. Courtesy of the artist with support from Instituto Moreira Salles Convida Program.

  • Mayara Ferrão, Álbum de desesquecimentos [Album of Deforgetfulness], 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Gê Viana, Modern photography: Yaku Runa Simi, Historical photography: Young Waiãpi man photographed by D. Tilkin Gallois (Taitetuwa village, 1991), from Paridade [Parity] series, 2016-2025. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Denilson Baniwa, Ficções coloniais [Colonial Fictions],  2021. Courtesy of the artist.

  • Melissa de Oliveira, Ratão e Reflexo, from Cada cabeça é um mundo [Each Head is a World] series, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.