Project Team

Dr Giuliana Borea is the Director and Coordinator of the Amazonart Project – Phase 1 and Phase 2. She is Lecturer in Latin American Studies at Newcastle University and Affiliated Lecturer in Anthropology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Her research areas concern the mechanisms of contemporary art worlds; different epistemologies of art; museum theory and practice, and place-making and sensory practices. She is a regional specialist of Latin America with long fieldwork experience in Peru. She has been Peru’s Director of Museums and Cultural Heritage, Coordinator of the Lima Contemporary Art Museum and a curator of indigenous contemporary art exhibitions. Her publications include ‘Personal Cartographies of a Huitoto Mythology: Rember Yahuarcani and the Enlarging of the Peruvian Contemporary Art Scene‘ (Rev. de Antropologia Social do PPGAS-UFSCar 2(2): 67-87), ‘Amazonian Waterway, Amazonian Water-Worlds: Rivers in Government Projects and Indigenous Art’ authored with Rember Yahuarcani (Liquid Ecologies, eds. L.Blackmore and L.Gomez, Routledge, 2020), and Configuring the New Lima Art Scene: An Anthropological Analysis of Contemporary Art in Latin America (Routledge, 2021). More information and contact here.

Professor Andrew Canessa is the Primary Coordinator of the Amazonart Project- Phase 1 and Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex.  He is a social anthropologist who has worked with indigenous peoples in Latin America for over 30 years.  His work has particularly focused on issues of gender, identity, sexuality, and racialisation among the Aymara speaking peoples of highland Bolivia. Among his publications are Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex, and History in the Small Spaces of Andean LifeDuke (2012) and ‘Indigenous Conflict in Bolivia Explored Through an African Lens: Towards a Comparative Analysis of Indigeneity.’ Comparative Studies in Society and History. 60 (2), 308-337, winner of the Jack Goody prize 2019

Rember Yahuarcani is a visual artist, writer and activist. He belongs to the Uitoto people in Peru’s northern Amazon. His artistic work focuses on the Uitoto ontologies and Amazonian worlds and his activist practice urges the respect of indigenous worlds. His work has been featured in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, US, UK, China, etc, and has won the II Intercontinental Biennale of Indigenous Art. He has also published four books and been the recipient of Peru’s National Award for Children’s Literature. He has recently authored, with G. Borea, the book chapter ‘Amazonian Waterway, Amazonian Water-Worlds: Rivers in Government Projects and Indigenous Art’ (Routledge, July 2020). With Covid-19 he has become a first-hand witness and an active voice that reports the critical situation in the Amazon. He is an opinion columnist in El Comercio newspaper (read his articles in https://elcomercio.pe/noticias/rember-yahuarcani/) . For more information here.

Elena Valera / Bahuan Jisbë is a visual artist and healer. She belongs to the Shipibo peoples in Peru’s central Amazon. Through painting and embroidery, her work focuses on the Amazonian flora and fauna with a particular interest on butterflies, which for the Shipibos are signs of someone coming back or of meeting someone new. She also explores the spatial mobility of women across geographies. She has presented her work at exhibitions in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Germany, UK, Denmark and Japan. Her work is part of the Museo de Arte de Lima collection. She is a community leader of the urban Cantagallo community. For more information here.

Harry Pinedo/Inin Metsa is a visual artist and an intercultural teacher. He belongs to the Shipibo people of Peru’s central Amazon and migrated to Lima at a young age. His work focuses on the internal migration from Shipibo Amazonian native communities to Lima and the various battles to establish a native urban community, raising questions of citizenship and housing rights. His first individual exhibition ‘The Yanapuma Splender’ (2017) tackled the contamination in the Amazon receiving wide coverage and local impact. Currently he is analysing the Shipibo answers to COVID-19. For more information here.

Alejandra Monteverde is an art gallerist. She studied Administration at the Universidad del Pacífico and has taken specialised courses on the art market at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, IESA Arts & Culture in Paris, and the Christie’s Education Online program. She has worked as Assistant Director and Management at the Lima Art Museum, MALI, and at other institutions dedicated to the visual arts. In 2017 she founded Crisis, a contemporary art gallery that aims to represent and internationalise mainly Peruvian and Latin American artists. www.crisis.pe.

The Roque Agustín Family lives in the Shipibo community of San Francisco and is composed by Nilda Agustin (artisan) and Juan Roque (fisherman), their six children  – Teolinda (artisan), Ronal (school teacher), Alexa (artisan), Lirma (school teacher), Yosmir (dancer and student), Bitia Astrid (school teacher) – and partners and grandchildren. The Roque Agustin Family has a long relationship of friendship and exchange with Giuliana Borea.  

Brus Rubio is a visual artist and runs an art gallery. He belongs to the Bora and Murui peoples in Peru’s northern Amazon.  His work focuses on knowledge production, politics of memory and on his transnational mobility, illuminating discussion on cosmopolitanism and ‘world-making.’ His work has been included in the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte de Lima. He has participated in Art Lima Art Fair and in ARCO Madrid’s official activities (2019). His artistic residencies include Mana Residencies in Miami (2018) and Matadero Art residencies in Madrid (2019). He has participated in group exhibitions in Peru, Brazil, Colombia, US, Switzerland, France, Spain, UK and China. Rubio has been recipient of the second award in the Artist Passport competition supported by the French Embassy in Peru (2011). He is currently director and curator of the Invisible Rain Forest Gallery in Lima. More information in https://www.brusrubio.com/

Roldán Pinedo/ Shoyan Sheca was born in the Shipibo Amazonian community of San Francisco and migrated to Lima in the 1990s, where he learned to paint with his cousin Robert Rengifo (Chonomëni) at the Rural Studies Seminars’s art workshops promoted by the historian Pablo Macera. His work focuses on Shipibo cosmology and ontology and explores the diversity of the Shipibo area flora and fauna, with emphasis on water beings. His work circulates widely in the Peruvian contemporary artworld and has been featured in international exhibitions. Roldan Pinedo is a political leader of the Shipibo community of Cantagallo in Lima. For more information here.

Santiago Yahuarcani is a visual artist and an indigenous leader of the Uitoto peoples. His work revolves around the Amazonian ontologies and the genocide policies against Amazonian people. His work on indigenous suffering and human exploitation with the rubber boom has impacted Peru’s national memory. He has also worked on issues of the extractivist exploitation and currently he is documenting and expressing indigenous strategies towards the Covid-19. His work is in the Museo de Arte de Lima and Museo de Arte de San Marcos collection, and has been featured in the Americas, US, Europe and Asia.