By Cristina Verán
The politically vivid and historically grounded oeuvre of Denilson Baniwa (Baniwa) reflects the artist’s ever-vigilant, often circuitous journey amidst the shifting socio-cultural landscapes of Brazil. Through a practice that comprises art making, media producing, exhibition curation, and archival research, he spotlights urgent conversations while leveraging accusations and clamoring for colonially-rooted societies and institutions to reckon with their complicitness in the marginalization of Indigenous Peoples. His work has, meanwhile, featured in major international art spaces and forums—Kunsthalle Wien, Biennale of Sydney, and Art Basel Miami Beach, to name just a few—and he was awarded the 2021 PIPA Prize for contemporary art in Brazil. Earlier this month, Baniwa co-curated ARCO Madrid 2025’s special program “Wametisé: Ideas for an Amazofuturism,” and currently, his artworks included in “Visions of the Amazon” are on view at Peltz Gallery in London.
Cristina Verán recently spoke with the artist, following an intervention at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, about the provocations, tribulations, and potentialities inherent to being an Indigenous artist traversing both the art world and the world of one’s People.
Denilson Baniwa in New York, where he was invited to give an intervention for the book launch of Momentum: Art & Ecology in Contemporary Latin America, held at the nearby Museum of Modern Art (MoMA.) Photo by Cristina Verán.
CV: Let’s talk, first, about some of the formative experiences and contexts that influenced your beginnings as an artist.
DB: I was part of the first generation of those from the Amazon to join in the transition to a modern Brazil, a crazy liminal space, living between our ancestral ways and the country’s westernized mainstream culture. Before 1988, our Peoples had not been allowed to speak in public without our voices being mediated by the state—as though we were children without the intellect or capacity to make decisions for ourselves. But things began to change in that year, following the implementation of a new Federal Constitution, marking the first time in Brazil’s history that the state officially recognized Indigenous Peoples’ right to a guaranteed voice in society, as well as to things like education, healthcare, and—most significantly—our own territorial lands.
CV: What else had been happening at the time in the Amazon that coincided with this transition?
DB: Well, television had just arrived, and along with it, there was the kind of transformation you’d imagine it would bring to any community encountering it for the first time—especially in the rainforest. The people we saw on TV were not like us. Their language was not Baniwa, and their way of dressing, way of being, and even the food they ate was unlike anything we’d ever had or done before. From then, we were led to believe that everything good that was supposed to define “beauty” and “success” in the world, was whatever it showed us. Because of this influence, sadly, the youth in my community—myself included—suddenly wanted to become “white” to not be Indigenous anymore. I didn't understand, as a teenager, what was going on though.
CV: At what point did you begin interrogating these external ideas being foisted on you, and contemplate ways to actively resist or respond to them?
DB: When I was 17 or so, around 2001, I was called to join the rising Indigenous activist movement in my region fighting for our land, for our rights. Through this, I began to finally comprehend the great value of my own heritage and culture. They encouraged and taught me to find strategies that would spread our own ideas further and further.
My first official role focused on communications, building community radio stations as well as creating programs for larger media companies; anything to help expand the reach and influence of our Peoples. Rádio Yandê—the first Indigenous Peoples-led mass-communication outlet in Brazil—is something I’m especially proud of for empowering our cultures, arts, languages, and news to be broadcast and disseminated to many audiences.
Denilson Baniwa and co-curator Maria Willis, standing with the sculptures of Peruvian artist Nereida López (Tikuna/Kukama) from Peru, at the ARCO Madrid 2025 exhibition they curated, "Wametisé: Ideas for an Amazofuturism."
CV: Around this time, you ventured out from your community, migrating to Rio de Janeiro. Did many Baniwa already live in that city of millions?
DB: Then? No (and very few even now). But after a while, Indigenous Peoples from other parts of the Amazon had begun to gather there. I was very interested in meeting them, hoping to find others with the same desire to work for our cause.
CV: How did you come to see art as relevant to and potentially useful as a strategy in this work and connecting it with potential audiences?
DB: To me art is a kind of bait, like what one uses to catch fish. It’s a trap that I throw out to the world to capture the interest of the public. Otherwise, non-Indigenous people don’t pay attention; they don’t want to hear us.
An Indigenous artist is like a kind of shaman whose works of art are like spells—a notion I take quite seriously in my own practice. Each piece I make, each thing I do for a gallery or an exhibition, intends to “bewitch” an intended group: those who may buy my art and/or those who might support our movement.
Denilson Baniwa's paintings represented by the Brazilian gallery A Gentil Carioca at Art Basel Miami.
CV: Your work doesn’t fit neatly within assumptions of what art from an Indigenous contemporary artist of the Amazon would, or perhaps even should, look like. How would you say it is (or isn’t) representative of your Baniwa culture—and has this been to your advantage, career-wise, or not?
DB: My art may be drawn or painted in a non-Baniwa way, but the essence remains Baniwa. Some aspects are more emphatic and more pronounced than others; for example, when I incorporate ancestral petroglyphs that represent Baniwa mythology in my paintings.
It’s important to note that, in Brazil, what artists themselves look like can sometimes matter more than what their work looks like. Many museums and galleries interested in Indigenous art go so far as to send curators out to remote villages in search of potential new “discoveries.” But what they want most, all too often, is someone to photograph—painted face, feathers, and all—that they can show off on their websites and Instagram: “Check out our Indigenous artist!”
CV: And if one doesn’t fit the stereotype, that Instagrammable image they want?
DB: To those of us who don’t present ourselves that way, who may live and work in the city rather than a village, they’ll often say dismissively, “Sorry. That doesn't work for us.”
When I first appeared on the scene, I deliberately positioned myself as someone whose work should not just be put into some box as “Indigenous art” or “Amazonian art.” As a result, curators today present my art in the same places, at the same level, as non-Indigenous artists—which I prefer. Unavoidably though, some do still insist on labeling it as “by an Indigenous artist” to appeal to certain collectors.
CV: Have art critics in Brazil noticed and commented on this kind of thing when evaluating exhibitions?
DB: Some, yes. A critical review I read about “Panorama of Brazilian Art” at MAM (Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo) addresses precisely this issue: how, from the moment one enters that exhibit, the art one sees by Black artists, Indigenous artists, female artists, trans artists and so on, is explicitly labeled as such. Only those not definable as such are classified as simply “artists.”
CV: This “othering” is commonplace, then?
DB: Yes. Also, anyone and anything Indigenous is presented as “exotic.”
CV: That’s ironic, given the word’s definition: “foreign, non-native, alien, imported,” etc.
DB: Indeed. Meanwhile, they focus almost exclusively on communities that maintain ancestral ways of living most visibly—despite there being more than 200 distinct Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, each with their own way of being and living. It is we, not they, who must define who and what we are.
CV: What counter-measures could have real potential to shift that thinking in Brazil?
DB: I’d like to see Indigenous artists here work together to create a new, more accurate, and meaningful vocabulary for our art because what currently exists in the art world neither fits nor represents us. There’s a whole generation of Indigenous Brazilians with university educations now, taking on professional roles that make it possible to begin deconstructing the stereotypes still imposed on us. Some TV channels, for example, have Indigenous members on staff, and new productions are appearing in which Indigenous Peoples featured in them seem more authentic, less like exoticized cartoons.
CV: How can you bridge the intercultural gaps between what you want to project and what your audiences, your collectors, may understand or even expect?
DB: Art itself is a means for that. For example, if I want a westernized audience to know something about our yopinai—spirits that live in the water, like people who transform into fish—they won’t really get it if I only communicate in our Baniwa way. But if, instead, I depict yopinai in my art as akin to, say, Marvel's X-Men—superheroes who turn into animals or whatever—they can more easily relate.
CV: Are there some things—images, concepts, motifs—that you deliberately avoid featuring within your art?
DB: Some collectors have a problem with artists who (they think) “talk too much” about, say, colonization and colonial violence, while others don't. That doesn’t direct the art I choose to make, however.
What I do care about, and am especially mindful of—to avoid problems with my own community—is refraining from painting images that are sacred for the Baniwa People or revealing secrets they do not want to be exposed.
CV: What do they make of your art and your career as a professional artist?
DB: Each time I return home, conversations typically start like this: “It's great that you're back, Denilson. Now, let's go plant a crop, let's go fishing!”
I felt, until recently, like nobody there understood what I was saying or doing in my work. “What is this art?” they wondered. “How is it that you make money by painting?” They were very confused, and I didn't even know how to explain. But from the moment my art started enabling me to give back to the community in tangible ways—building a school, for example, helping to buy things they need—they were able to better comprehend that it really is work, and there is meaning in what I do.
CV: How do you connect with the young people of Amazônia’s internet-raised generation?
DB: We tend to talk more about my day-to-day life in the city and much less about my work. Like most Indigenous youth in Brazil, they’re keen to know what life in Rio de Janeiro is like; if it’s the same as what they see on TV, on the internet. They want very much to go see it for themselves, so I caution them: the city can be like a monster, one that swallows you up. You can end up living inside its stomach without really knowing how to escape from it.
CV: Take us beyond Brazil now to some notable international encounters.
DB: My first time outside of the country to present my art was for a gathering in Toronto called “Arctic/Amazon.” It was absolutely incredible and completely changed my way of thinking about the role of and possibilities for Indigenous artists.
There were several of us from the Amazon there—including Jaider Esbell (Macuxi), Yube Huni Kuin (Huni Kuin), Waira Nina Jacanamijoy-Mutumbajoy (Inga), and Rosi Waikhon (Waíkhana)—and we got to meet a number of First Nations counterparts from Canada. I was especially happy to engage and make friends with the Inuit artists, and remember well our host Gerald McMaster (Plains Cree) and especially Wanda Nanibush (Anishinaabe), an important curator there who became a good friend.
CV: What were some key takeaways and teaching moments for you and your counterparts?
DB: I found it very impressive, for example, how super-organized they are there. And the galleries we visited in Toronto not only featured exhibitions by Indigenous artists, they were also managed by Indigenous professionals. I also noticed that the texts written to accompany exhibitions hung on the walls, were in not just one but typically three languages: the Indigenous language of each artist, then in English and French as well. I had never ever seen that kind of thing anywhere in Brazil, and it seemed unreal. Back home, it’s all in Portuguese.
We spoke a lot about the socioeconomic disparities between our countries; that we in Brazil are very poor, whereas they in Canada are (comparatively) super rich. And we also offered criticism about something there that seemed frankly unimaginable: many Indigenous Canadian artists have been willing to and do make connections with the kind of companies and institutions that for us—on principle—would be impossible. “What madness is this,” we asked, very directly, “associating yourself with oil and petroleum companies? In Brazil, we don't do that!”
Denilson Baniwa's painting featured in the See Me, Feel Me: Native Cultures exhibition at ArtNexus Space Miami.
CV: And what other experiences abroad have especially stood out for you?
DB: I really enjoyed working with the Getty Center in Los Angeles back in 2021. I’d gone there to do research on their vast collection of 1500+ engravings by so-called “traveling artists”—works that comprise many of the first representations, in art, of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas made for European audiences. I then produced my own artistic interventions, deconstructing the images in terms of how they reveal various aspects of the racism and violence inherent to the colonization process.
That experience—my first time having access to a major archive like that—was life-changing, in large part thanks to the curator Idurre Alonso. She’s Basque and I believe that having come from a part of Spain that struggles in asserting its own sovereignty helped her to understand me, in context of the current situation and struggles of Indigenous Brazilians. Together, we produced the exhibition “Reinventing the Americas: Construct. Erase. Repeat.”
CV: You mentioned having been to Portugal. What brought you there, and what were some of your impressions from inside what was a once formidable empire to which your People’s history is bound?
DB: That journey started on the Peru side of the Amazon, where I’d been fortunate to spend time in Pucallpa with the Shipibo-Konibo community to make a short film, "Bakish Rao: Plantas En La Lucha" (English title - Bakish Rao: Plant Resistance,) that denounces deforestation caused there by the oil palm industry. It was well received internationally, and so I was invited with my collaborators to screen it in Portugal.
It was of course very interesting to see, in person, the land that created Brazil by colonizing our land. I also encountered something there that I would have never imagined still existed in the world. During a visit to the Museum at the University of Coimbra, they opened for me—with conspicuous pride—a cabinet of curiosities featuring a collection of human heads from the Amazon!
CV: For you, an honored guest?
DB: Yes, I was shocked. I’d been to museums in Paris, London, Berlin, and around the U.S., too, and seen things from the Amazon on display before. But everyone I’d meet in such places would emphasize being focused, more or less, on making their museums somehow less colonial. So to see that kind of display in Portugal—not only in terms of content and presentation but also the attitude about its suitability as such—was contrary to what I’d encountered anywhere else.
CV: Is there something you’d be interested in creating or developing from there, perhaps responding to those experiences and impressions?
DB: I plan to return to Portugal next year, to do research on a major collection of objects from the Amazon that were gathered mostly by Portuguese explorer Alexandre Rodriguez Ferreira, a noted geographer and naturalist of the colonial era. He once passed through the region where I was born, and I’m curious to see what may have come from my people. I’d also like to produce some new art, and an exhibition inspired by such things.
CV: What international collaborations are you part of right now?
DB: I'm working with Rember Yahuarcani (Uitoto) from the Peruvian Amazon, Brus Rubio, who is also from Peru, and a group called Coletivo Cherani from Mexico.
CV: You’ve also spoken about the importance of mutual support and recognition among Indigenous artists for one another’s successes. What does that look like to you?
DB: Institutions often call on the same person, over and over, as if one Indigenous artist or performer can represent and speak for an entire movement—but that’s not the case. It’s crucial that others are invited, too. In addition to those I just mentioned, I urge art spaces and audiences to look to people like Gustavo Caboco, Eric Terena, Olinda Silvano, and others. Only then can they possibly hope to understand the complex history and diversity of both Peoples and the art of the Amazon.
--Cristina Verán is an international Indigenous Peoples-focused specialist researcher, educator, advocacy strategist, network weaver, editor, and mediamaker. She was a founding member of the United Nations Indigenous Media Network and the Indigenous Language Caucus. As adjunct faculty at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she brings emphasis to the global histories, expressions, and socio-political impacts of Indigenous popular culture(s) alongside contemporary visual and performing arts. She is originally from Peru.
Top photo: From the solo exhibition "Denilson Baniwa: Under the Skin of History" (2024) at Princeton University Art Museum - Bainbridge House. Photo Credit: Joseph Hu
