4 - ‘AEI: Uma Mostra Interativa’: An Ethnographic Reading of Indigenous Curatorial Agency

Summary

There were 21 Indigenous people present at ‘AEI: Uma Mostra Interativa’ [AEI: An Interactive Exhibition], as it was billed on advertising hoardings round the city, for the opening weekend (see figs 7–8). That is to say, there was an average of two Indigenous people per project, including artists, artisans and those who were linked to the project in other more supporting roles, with expenses largely paid by the project funding. Indeed, the fact that four men from the Pankararu community came to the inaugural weekend, with the extra two agreeing to pay their own bus fares, speaks of how important the exhibition of project results was to those who had participated in the different projects in the communities. While it is a standing joke in Indigenous circles in Brazil that many things get done ‘pra inglês ver’ [lit. so foreigners, especially English ones, can spectate] and that clearly doing something ‘for show’ at the end of this kind of project is also something that funders rather like in terms of how it enhances their visibility, this aspect of the project was clearly not experienced as a ‘Western’ imposition, nor carried out with gritted teeth, by the Indigenous participants. Rather, it was approached as a significant opportunity for them to gain positive visibility – for their creativity and culture rather than the bad press of territorial disputes or the woes of poverty and calamity –, and this in an important urban centre and elite cultural venue. As Mangtxai Camacam Imboré noted in interview,

É uma grande experiência. Eu nunca tinha entrado num museu, não sabia nem o que era um museu, só ouvi falar … e agora eu estou vendo. Eu vou levar nova experiência para minha aldeia.

[It's a great experience. I had never set foot in a museum, I didn't even know what a museum was, I’d just heard them mentioned in passing … and now I can see for myself. I’m going to take this new experience back to my Indigenous village with me.]