Anna Bottesi

The Munduruku are among the Amazonian Indigenous groups most impacted by territorial invasion and environmental exploitation. These pressures pose serious threats to both individual rights and the continuity of cultural practices. In such context, reclaiming and valuing cultural heritage has become a powerful form of resistance, particularly in contrasting the alienation of Indigenous youth from their culture, a process which is often driven by discrimination from non-Indigenous society. This workshop was thought in collaboration with the Associação dos Profissionais em Educação Indígena Ikõ Muywatpu, in order to support Indigenous schooling in the Middle Tapajós region. It consists of three meetings, during which students from local Indigenous schools will have the opportunity to work alongside experienced artisans and learn traditional techniques used in crafting every day and ceremonial objects. Discussions on the Munduruku cosmological, historical and symbolic meaning of the artifacts will complement each session. In addition, participants will engage with photographs of objects collected and held in European ethnographic museums since the 18th century. This encounter between ancient and contemporary heritage is aimed at opening up possibilities for imagining how these cultural objects, while remaining rooted in an ancestral past, can be reintegrated into present-day and future narratives.