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April 22, 2008
Indians, jaguars and toucans invade Manhattan
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Amazônia Brasil Exhibition reaches New York
Publication: O Estado de S. Paulo
People who live in New York can see at first hand that the Amazon is a much more fantastic forest than they had ever imagined. There are people living in the Amazon who are the ones who are really looking after it, who know how to look after it and who need support to do so – not only for its own survival, but for the future of the very planet itself. The Amazônia Brasil Exhibition, which has already been seen in São Paulo, Rio and Minas Gerais and is in its fourth international version, will be showing just this reality for the next three months, in three installations that have been assembled in the south of Manhattan. The main area, with its ecological and social-economic focus, is complemented by a photographic exhibition and another on fashion and design. Jaguars, Indians, toucans and macaws invade the urban landscape of New York on the posters publicizing the event throughout the city. In an affirmation of the perspective by which the theme is being approached the words ‘Amazônia’ and ‘Brasil’ use the Brazilian way of writing them.
The idea of 'amazoning the world' and 'greening our thinking' suggested by infectologist Eugênio Scannavino Netto, the person whose brain-child the project is, receives a visual interpretation in the main and biggest of the three parts of the exhibition, which covers 1,200 m2 on Pier 17 and will be officially inaugurated this evening. On the banks of the East River and almost under Brooklyn Bridge, the reconstituted forest, criss-crossed by the Amazon River, has small thatched wooden houses, brought directly from the forest, where Indians live, make manioc flour and smoke latex.
Art direction for the main exhibition, which provides the whole event with its name, has been entrusted to designer, Gringo Cardia. It comprises a three-dimensional map covered by plants and synthesizes all the diversity of the Brazilian Amazon region. To the sound of water, birds and other animals you can walk along the banks of the Amazon River and its tributaries, stroll past jaguars and models of small towns with their typical residents and come across fishing boats and boats for carrying people and goods. Monumental photographs by Araquém Alcântara amplify details of both the forest’s natural beauty as well as its destruction. Videos show Indians and other people who live in the region talking about the relationship they have with the environment where they live.
Among its 23 million inhabitants the Brazilian Amazon region is home to at least 250,000 Indians and more than 200 ethic groups. Many are in the photos taken by photographer, Rodrigo Petrella, which form the exhibition ‘Guardians of the Forest’, in the National Museum of the American Indian. In the World Financial Center, objects by Indians and other local craftspeople share a gallery with creations from stylists who take part in the São Paulo Fashion Week, like André Lima, Lino Villaventura and Alexandre Herchcovitch, in the ‘Amazônia Design, Fashion and Sustainable Economy’ Exhibition. This particular exhibition, directed by Débora Laruccia, also has furniture and jewelry that value the environment and the economy of Amazonian communities.
’Amazônia Brasil’, organized by the Heath and Happiness Project (PSA) and the Amazon Working Group (GTA), which represents more than 600 entities, has already been seen in Paris, Lausanne and Bavaria and will be on show in New York until July 13. The program will also include seminars, educational projects and a further exhibition on global warming and the impact of climate change on the Amazon, which will run from June 12 to July 13 in the United Nations Building.
'This is not an exhibition about the Amazon, but of the Amazon’, Scannavino emphasizes. 'It shows the real Amazon, with its contradictions, positive initiatives and the point of view of its communities. Much is said about the destruction of the region, but there are various transforming and successful experiences, based on sustainable development, preservation of the environment and respect for local people. This is what we want to share with visitors to the exhibition', says the doctor, who is also PSA’s coordinator. The initiative aims to raise people’s awareness and collect funds that will be directed towards initiatives of those who Scannavino defines as 'the true owners of the Amazon'. Among these are the nearly 430,000 people from communities represented by the Coordination Office of the Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon Region (Coiab) and more than 30,000 people from the 150 hunting and gathering communities of the Tapajós River basin who participate in the PSA.
Besides support from the Brazil government, IBM and the American Express Foundation, the exhibition has landed another great sponsor for the New York edition; American corporation, Alcoa, one of the world’s largest producers of aluminum, which has units in the States of Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco and Maranhão. The company is going to open a bauxite mine in Juruti, in Pará, its first investment in the Amazon region after almost 50 years of activity in Brazil. 'Supporting this initiative is an eloquent way for Alcoa to demonstrate its commitment to the Amazon', says the Company’s Director of Institutional Affairs for Latin America, Nemércio Nogueira.
The organizers are expecting that the exhibition will be seen by some 400,000 people. Thanks to the agreement with the city’s Board of Education, even before the event opens the agenda for groups of students from public schools is already completely full. As a result of this agreement, the Amazon (from the perspective of the people who live there) has also entered this year’s curriculum for children from the third to the sixth grades. After New York, ‘Amazônia Brasil’ will be shown in Tokyo in November and December and in Amsterdam at the beginning of next year.
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