Paiter Suruí, True People: a Coletivo Lakapoy Project
IMS Paulista
Exhibition texts
Redefining the archive - an indigenous gaze
It is known that contact between indigenous peoples and the cultures of the protagonists of colonial invasion, or their descendants, has involved a long history of genocide, land grabbing and unprecedented violence. Such is the burden of a memory that cannot be built in the present without an awareness that this is also a battleground, a place of struggles, resistance and of the liberation of alternative futures to be defined based on other paths that are not just possible, but also imperative. Hence the need for a dialogue that does not hinder clashes between points of view, or differences, in a common recognition of their histories.
Unique conditions exist today for dialogue between technologies inherited from ancestral wisdom and those invented or developed based on technical progress that conceal a colonial vision of the world at the service of extractivist profits arising from the exploitation of geographies and ways of life. Photography, cinema, together with other forms of documentation and audiovisual expression, artistic or otherwise, are woven into this story, contributing to the wonder of witnessing how a critical awareness of the past can be activated and used today as an instrument of resistance, struggle, and emancipation, generating new forms of artistic and cultural expression.
Photography represents one of the most extensive and profound areas of the Instituto Moreira Salles collections. Programming an exhibition that presents the archives collected and constructed by Coletivo Lakapoy has led the IMS to respond to challenges that redefine its own institutional role, faced with the additional mission of contributing to the protection and recognition of collective archives that do not belong to the institution’s collection. Archives such as these are fundamental in building and interpreting the memory of Brazil and the world anew, and during this process conceptions of archiving, documentation and artistic expression come to be reinvented, as is the case with the images and material presented in this exhibition. The story of the Paiter Suruí has also been one of resistance and struggle ever since the first contact with white settlers. It was these very struggles that secured them the demarcation of their land in 1983. And the fight goes on today against threats from mining and a host of other extractivist invasions that put their and our way of life at risk. The fight for memory is also a fight for the existence of a people that this exhibition features, promotes and amplifies.
Instituto Moreira Salles expresses its deepest acknowledgements to Almir Suruí, the great leader, for all of the support in helping to oversee this project. Our gratitude extends to all of the individuals of the Paiter Suruí people who participated at various stages throughout the production and who contributed in diverse ways, with emphasis on the materials created by Paiter Suruí women specifically for this presentation. We express our particular gratitude to the curatorial team that led this entire project, comprising Txai Suruí, a young leader and activist of her people; Lahayda Mamani Poma, guest curator, Indigenous woman, architect, and researcher; and Thyago Nogueira, coordinator of Contemporary Art at the Instituto Moreira Salles. Our acknowledgments extend to all the teams, both internal and external, at the IMS, who contributed decisively to this moment. We express, above all, our deepest gratitude to all of the members of the Coletivo Lakapoy: to them we owe everything that has taken place in this project.
The exhibition Paiter Suruí, True People: a Coletivo Lakapoy Project will go on to be displayed in the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Territory. Both moments are essential to understanding how, as Ubiratan Suruí expresses, “in these new times, photography is a form of resistance for the indigenous peoples of Brazil.
Board of directors of the Instituto Moreira Salles
Paiter Suruí, True People: A Coletivo Lakapoy Project
Curated By Txai Suruí, Lahayda Mamani Poma And Thyago Nogueira
“When the first camera arrived in 1969, we thought it would steal our souls. Today, our own lenses tell the story of who we are.”
Coletivo Lakapoy
This exhibition represents an invitation to travel through time and learn about the life and the struggles of the Paiter Suruí people of the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Territory, situated in the Brazilian Amazon between the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso. From the ancestral stories to the cameras we wield today like arrows, each photograph presented here is a fragment of a journey: our origin and our clans, the invasions, the epidemics, and resistance against contact, our everyday lives, and our strategies for reforesting land, culture, and futures.
Paiter means “True People” – those who think collectively and respect all forms of life. Our ancestors lived with the forest and we have inherited the land from our Matered-ey (ancestors). Living with the forest has always been our way of life, our people continue to live with it and depend on it.
Most of the 800 historical photographs presented and narrated in this exhibition have been taken and safeguarded by various families of the Paiter Suruí people since the 1970s, when the first cameras were left in the territory. Compiled and digitized by the Coletivo Lakapoy over the last few years, this collection covers the walls of the exhibition like a vast family album, embracing and interrogating visitors. The exhibition also includes contemporary photographs, interviews with the community, videos from indigenous communicators, a projection relating to the restitution of images of first contact, and art produced by women. This is our story, told our way.
Formed in 2022, the Coletivo Lakapoy takes on the name and mission of the great protective spirit of the forest, demonstrating how the tools of colonization – such as photography and writing – can be turned into weapons that protect identity and territory. The project has brought generations together, strengthened labiway-ey (leadership), rescued knowledge, and recognized pioneering photographers, such as Pamadeli Suruí and Mopiri Suruí. By visiting each family in turn and establishing the complicity required to entrust them with these photographs, the collective has created an unprecedented collection and turned their artistic practice into an act of diplomacy.
Here the Paiter Suruí tell their story through their production of images that brim with love and kindness but also with knowledge and respect for humanity and nature. This intimate gaze challenges traditional representations by drawing together different moments in time and features that have always seemed irreconcilable to non-indigenous eyes. These photos reveal the capacity of the Paiter Suruí to adapt to and reinvent the contemporary world. They also illustrate a future in construction: young filmmakers, baristas, firefighters and digital warriors taking our culture to museums and to the world.
For over 500 years indigenous peoples have been expressing profound resistance through their ways of living, feeling, nourishing themselves, and, above all, in their creations – new forms of artistic production and other possible worlds. May these memories continue to guide the dreams that arrive in the time of the Matered-ey, and drink from the same spring of knowledge. The wisdom passed down by Palob (the Creator), and the richness of our culture – which to some may seem to be disappearing – remain alive, despite the challenges. This is not yet the definitive history of our people – many stories have yet to be told and heard.
This exhibition is a warning: while national politics acts against the rights of indigenous people, illegal miners and loggers advance. Despite this, we remain standing, defending the forest that sustains us – and that sustains the planet. We are like the samaúma: our roots are grounded in ancestral soil, but our branches reach for the world.
Txai Suruí in collaboration with Lahayda Mamani Poma and Thyago Nogueira
Coletivo Lakapoy comprises Ubiratan Suruí, Txai Suruí, Gabriel Uchida, Xener Suruí, Chrystiann Ritse, Kennedy Suruí and Oyago Suruí