MAHKU, the artist collective from the Huni Kuin people of the Amazon rainforest, achieved international fame with their large-format wall paintings – among others at the Venice Biennale.
Their works question colonial, patriarchal and neo-liberal power structures. Humans are considered particles within a continuous whole in time and space.
Reforestation, the forestation of the spirit is an Indigenous demand for the Western world – it is about rediscovering dreams, relationships, past and future. The holistic understanding of being, the perpetual revival of origin myths, the dissolution of the time axis, the connection between all stirring and non-stirring creatures in the here and yonder, in everyday life and in spirituality is communicated through the art of MAHKU.
Thus the founder and spiritual leader of MAHKU, Ibã Sales Huni Kuin, and his partner, Kassia Borges Karajá, will revive the forest spirit Nixi Pae in a two-day workshop together with the participants, using Huni Meka chants, Kene Kuins and in many conversations.
On 4 June, there will also be a additional discussion session starting at 8pm.
Further information here
The Huni Meka chants
Are a central cultural and ritual heritage of the Huni Kuin. They carry knowledge, identity and spiritual practice, serve communication with nature, animals and medicinal plants. They accompany ceremonies, healing rituals and communal everyday life; they are deeply embedded in cosmology. The Huni Meka chants are protected and passed on by the shamans. In the sacred Nixi Pae rituals, they are used to communicate with the spiritual world. It is the chant that holds up the sky!
Kene Kuin
Sacred emblems of Huni Kuin identity
The Kene Kuin are complex geometrical patterns that are deduced from natural shapes. They play a central role in body painting as well as in crafts, dress and architecture. They represent spiritual concepts, forces of nature and wisdoms that are passed on. They are the preserve of women, who receive them in visions in order to assume the power they represent.
