HELENEUM – LUGANO
Over 60 works of art from the Venezuelan Amazon: woven baskets that highlight female creativity and the processes of transformation of traditional styles.
“Among unwritten peoples, this art occupies […] an important place, often the first: the art of wickerwork lends itself to innumerable uses and achieves a perfection that we cannot match. In the hands of specialists, basketry constituted a noble art that […] was the privilege of initiated circles.”
From LÉVI-STRAUSS Claude, Look, listen, read, transl. it., Il Saggiatore (Est/197), Milan 1993, p. 143. Original ed. 1993.
The exhibition is rich in ethical as well as artistic values. It is in fact an integral part of a project that has a twofold objective: on the one hand to provide scientific documentation on the relationship between works of art and the linguistic, ideological and mythical heritage of the Yekuana, a people of the Venezuelan Guayana; on the other hand, to try to sustain and keep alive a local tradition, guiding its transformation so that it can contribute to the sustainable development of the communities involved. This local tradition is referred to by the term tidi’uma, which defines all those objects that, like the baskets and wooden sculptures presented in the exhibition, are ‘high’ products, expressions of the Yekuana culture and ideological system, as opposed to the ‘low’ ones adopted by the outside world (mesoma).
The project was initiated in 2012 by the Asociación Venezolana para la Conservación de Áreas Naturales (ACOANA), which received cooperation support from the Swiss Confederation’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, through the Swiss Embassy in Venezuela, for its commitment and activities. Over the years, the artists of the Yekuana communities have been supported in recognising the dignity and value of their creativity, traditionally expressed through delicate weaving works and wooden sculptures depicting forest spirits and animals. More specifically, among the objectives of the project, accompanied by a series of collective art exhibitions held in the villages involved, were to increase the solidarity, confrontation and mastery of artists from several villages, and to present their works to the public as interpreters of a ‘style’ or ‘school’. This has made it possible, among other things, to activate and supply specific commercial circuits, which have the advantage of also supporting, as far as possible, the development of forms of cultural tourism. Thanks to the collaboration with the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, MUSEC in turn supported the project by organising an international seminar in Lugano on 3 July 2014, attended by specialists in the field, and by accepting the indefinite deposit of 64 works that are now presented to the Lugano public, accompanied by a volume that photographs the state of scientific research on Yekuana art. An opportunity, therefore, not only to enjoy the stylised motifs of a very ancient art and the “uncertain statutes of a fragile art”, but also to make a profound reflection on the value of sustainability and the ethical and political necessity of contributing to the preservation of a habitat without which the cultures that inhabit it are inevitably forced to assimilate.
In 2016, the exhibition was also shown in Rome, at the Cervantes Institute. In addition to its partnership with the Embassy of Switzerland in Rome, it also benefits from the cooperation and support of the Cervantes Institute in Rome, venue of the exhibition, and the Swiss Institute in Rome, venue of the side event.
Through the presentation of the exhibition in Rome and cooperation with local partners, it is intended to promote bilateral relations between Switzerland and Italy as well as cooperation in the cultural sphere.
REITERATIONS
17 JUNE 2016 – 16 JULY 2016, CERVANTES INSTITUTE ROME
