Chapter 7: Amazonian Waterway, Amazonian Water-Worlds: Rivers in Government Projects and Indigenous Art
Giuliana Borea and Rember Yahuarcani
This chapter analyses diverse river realities and current water conflicts in Peru’s Amazon. It shows how the Peruvian government’s Amazonian Waterway -Hydrovia- Project and the indigenous Amazonian Water-worlds are immersed in different notions, forms of relations, management and river-making, as well as in power relations that determine reality, cultural specificity and inequalities. The chapter argues, however, that contemporary indigenous art becomes today a key practice that allow to visibilise and push forward indigenous Amazonian worlds. By focusing on the ways in which the work of Harry Pinedo, Roldán Pinedo and Rember Yahuarcani explore and inform about the river, it explains densities, spatialities and times of water other than those foster by the government´s project of “public interest,” and discusses notions of solidity and liquidity. The chapter argues that these art practices stand for multiple conceptions-being of the world/s and for the need of their equal respect and participation in shaping and managing the world.
Open Access: Amazonian Waterway, Amazonian Water-Worlds | Rivers in Government Proj (taylorfrancis.com)
Amazonian Waterways, Amazonian Water-worlds (Art Exchange, 27 February 2020):
A talk by Dr Giuliana Borea that explores the tensions between the Peruvian government’s newly proposed Amazonian Hydrovia Project and Amazonian indigenous communities living and working on the river. as part of the Public Program of Carolyna Caicedo’s When Walls Become Rivers Exhibition curated by Dr Lisa Blackmore.
More information in: http://www.escala.org.uk/events/talks-tours/talk-amazonian-waterway-amazonian-water-worlds
*Cover image: Rember Yahuarcani, Buiñaiño, 2009, acrylic on tree bark. Image courtesy of the artist.