The Triennale Milano and Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain present the exhibition Siamo Foresta, inaugurated in June and open until October 29, 2023. Curated by Bruce Albert and Hervé Chandès, the exhibition features works by 27 artists from different countries and cultures, mainly from Latin America and indigenous communities.
The exhibition is the result of a partnership between the two institutions — which has already produced six projects over eight years — and seeks to reach diverse audiences and promote artists from different geographical contexts. Designed by Brazilian artist Luiz Zerbini, the exhibition highlights the importance of the forest as a central theme and provides an emotional connection between the works.
More than 70% of the works exhibited in Siamo Foresta come from the Fondation Cartier collection. This attests to the relationship established with artists from native communities in South America. This interaction between indigenous and non-indigenous aesthetic and metaphysical worlds has resulted in new artistic projects, exclusive works, and surprising collaborations. Additionally, the exhibition presents several unpublished creations, specially conceived for the event.
The artists in this exhibition, whether they are observers of the plant and animal diversity of the forest in which they live or urban inhabitants fascinated by it, engage in dialogue around a common theme: the need to reimagine humanity's role in the context of all living beings. To highlight the emotional connections, stylistic and conceptual affinities between the selected works, Luiz Zerbini's exhibition project seeks to establish a connection between the artists, involving the entire metaphorical scope of the exhibition and allowing the essence of the forest to inhabit the spaces of the Triennale Milano.
Fondation Cartier works to promote encounters and exchanges between artists, a principle that is at the origin of this exhibition, resulting from conversations that have led to unprecedented collaborations, particularly between Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, a Yanomami artist from Venezuela, and French artist Fabrice Hyber; or between artists Adriana Varejão, from Rio de Janeiro, and Joseca Mokahesi, a Yanomami from Brazil; and the most recent collaboration between Yanomami artist Ehuana Yaira and Chinese artist based in New York, Cai Guo-Qiang.
Since its origins, Western tradition has categorized living beings according to a value scale in which humans occupy the top. Through this supremacism, humanity has gradually distanced itself from the living world, paving the way for all the abuses that now culminate in the destruction of biodiversity and the contemporary climate catastrophe. On the other hand, the philosophy of indigenous societies in the Americas considers that humans and non-humans (animals and plants), although different in appearance, are deeply united by the same sensitivity and intentionality. Therefore, human and non-human communities constitute a complex multiverse of beings that coexist on an equal footing and at the cost of mutual compromise within the same vast and living entity, the 'earth-forest-world' — Bruce Albert, anthropologist and exhibition curator.
On the one hand, by bringing together artists who explore the idea of planetary unity through the forest, it ceases to be a distant space from the city and culture and becomes a place of celebration and encounter. On the other hand, art is the way different cultures dialogue and transform each other. The exhibition reveals the influences of indigenous cultures from the Amazon region and beyond on non-indigenous cultures; the museum becomes the place where the arts point to new paths for reimagining the planet and its future.
Participating Artists
Fernando Allen (Paraguay), Efacio Álvarez (Nivaklé, Paraguay), Cleiber Bane (Huni Kuin, Brazil), Cai Guo-Qiang (China), Johanna Calle (Colombia), Fredi Casco (Paraguay), Alex Cerveny (Brazil), Jaider Esbell (Makuxi, Brazil), Floriberta Fermín (Nivaklé, Paraguay), Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe (Yanomami, Venezuela), Aida Harika (Yanomami, Brazil), Fabrice Hyber (France), Morzaniel Ɨramari (Yanomami, Brazil), Angélica Klassen (Nivaklé, Paraguay), Esteban Klassen (Nivaklé, Paraguay), Joseca Mokahesi (Yanomami, Brazil), Bruno Novelli (Brazil), Virgil Ortiz (Pueblo Cochiti, New Mexico, United States), Santídio Pereira (Brazil), Solange Pessoa (Brazil), Brus Rubio Churay (Murui-Bora, Peru), André Taniki (Yanomami, Brazil), Edmar Tokorino (Yanomami, Brazil), Adriana Varejão (Brazil), Ehuana Yaira (Yanomami, Brazil), Roseane Yariana (Yanomami, Brazil), Luiz Zerbini (Brazil).
