BRASILIENSIS RAINFOREST to Play Goethe-Institut Boston in June

The Goethe-Institut Boston has invivted artist and performer Anita Ekman, together with musician Patrick Angello, for a presentation and concert that unites Contemporary Art and the Challenge of Reframing the Imagery of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in the Brazilian Amazon (COP-30). The award-winning Brasilian artist team retells the story of the African diaspora and indigenous resistance in the Brazilian rainforests (the Amazon and the Atlantic Rainforest) through the history of photography and the Brazilian guitar.

The performance, created by the artists in partnership with various collaborators including Edu Simões indigenous thinkers and artists Cristine Takua and Carlos Papa, is part of the "Cosmoperceptions of the Forest" project, which was initiated and promoted by the Goethe-Institut in Rio de Janeiro, with the aim of globally uniting indigenous and scientific knowledge about forests and climate change. Through artistic residencies in Colombia, Brazil, Finland and Germany, the project envisages the creation of a series of artistic works that will be exhibited during COP 30 in November 2025 in the Brazilian Amazon (Belém).  

Brasiliensis Rainforest seeks to overcome the gaps created by the science produced in the 19th century, which are the foundation of the global imaginary about the meanings of the tropical forest and its human and non-human inhabitants. Ekman creates art works inspired by the decolonization of the collections of important institutions such as Harvard's Peabody Museum which bring to light the cosmovision and the history of resistance of indigenous and Afro-Brazilian peoples.

The artistic performance coincides with Harvard University's seminar “Radcliffe Accelerator Workshop | The Body-territory of the Rainforest: Revisiting the collections of the Thayer and Morgan expeditions through worldviews and the legacies of slavery,” which marks the first time Harvard opens its collections to review of their legacy of slavery and responsibility towards the Brazilian rainforests. The closed event takes place May 30-31, 2024 and is coordinated by the curator of photography at the Peabody Museum Ilisa Barbash and Thomas B. F. Cummins (Director of Dumbarton Oaks Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art Pre-Columbian and Latin American Art). The seminar brings together the artists Anita Ekman, Cristine Takua, Carlos Papa, João Paulo Tukano and leading experts on the rainforests in Brazil and aims to culminate in a future exhibition on the topic.

UN COP-30, the world's most important climate summit, is confirmed to take place in the Amazon (Belém, Brazil) in November 2025. Brazilian artist and independent researcher Anita Ekman is scheduled to present her recent collaborative works at the summit and make a case for how contemporary art can help map the history of the tropical forests (Amazon and Atlantic Forest). 

The events in Boston/Cambridge are supported by the Brazilian Consulate in Boston (Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Itamaraty).

BRASILIENSIS RAINFOREST: An Afro-Indigenous Cosmovisio

June 6th, 2024, 7 PM

Goethe-Institut Boston, 170 Beacon Street, Boston MA
Tickets: $20 General Admission / $10 Students and Seniors (all proceeds go directly to the artists)
More Information and tickets at https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/sta/bos/ver.cfm?event_id=25670712 

Performers:

Anita Ekman, https://www.anitaekman.com/
Patrick Angello (Brasilian guitar)

Anita Ekman is a visual and performance artist, curator and independent researcher of rock art, pre-colonial art and the history of forests. She was born in the Atlantic Forest (São Paulo). The focus of her work has been on Cosmovision, Indigenous agency and history, the role of women in Brazilian art and Rainforest maintenance. Ekman's collaborative performance work take place in, and about, archaeological sites and archaeological museum collections. She is researching the historical alliances between Indigenous and African Diasporic peoples in the Atlantic Rainforest and Amazon. In 2021 Ekman, together with Benites, received a Visual Arts Scholarship from the Goethe Institute and the French Embassy in Brazil to work on the history of Brazilian archaeological collections in Europe. Together they recently completed a residency at the Clark Museum. Ekman's work and research have been published by websites of museums such as MoMA, Peabody Museum of Harvard and Od review.

Anita Ekman has worked with curators Sandra Benites and Cris Takua on international exhibitions such Ka´a Body –Cosmovisions of the Forest in London at Paradise Row (2021) and in Paris at Galeria Radicantes (2022), and in Santa Fe, Womb of the Earth, open at the AIA – Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) in February 2024.

Patrick Angello is one of the leading names in Brazilian guitar (6-string and 7-string) in the Choro and Samba genres, accompanying names such as Elza Soares, Beth Carvalho, Velha Guarda da Mangueira and others. He is currently developing musical performances on Afro-indigenous worldviews and the history of Brazilian forests with Anita Ekman and indigenous artists such as Carlos Papa, Cris Takua.

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