Memories of the future

“ We are people of trajectory,

we are of circularity: beginning, middle and beginning.

Our lives have no end ”

Antônio Bispo dos Santos (The land gives, the land wants)

If there is a future to be considered, that future is ancestral. Of all the possibilities imagined by man for the perpetuation of our species on Earth, of all the scenarios created and designed by civilizations throughout the history of humanity, only looking towards what has always been here and that makes up what we are in all our essence makes this continuation possible. It is through this thought, as obvious and lucid as it is radical, that the indigenous leader, environmentalist and philosopher Ailton Krenak guides us in his provocative book Ancestral Future . And it is through the eloquence of such an ideal that the exhibition Memories of the Future , on display at Carbono Galeria, is constituted.

If the future does not exist – after all, it is only possible to imagine it – this exhibition aims to outline possibilities for that future from the perspective of ten artists and their powerful worldviews.

To compose this rich and diverse panorama of perspectives, these artists were invited to create new works that envision their ideals and discuss their respective ancestries through a unique and interdisciplinary perspective, combining craftsmanship, purpose and technology. In order for the composition of this clan to encompass our rich and diverse culture, artists from different regions of this vast territory that we also call Brazil were selected. All of them are inevitably connected to the environmental universe, whether in a terrestrial or celestial way.

It is important to emphasize that this creative encounter also ends up instigating our reflection on some of the irreparable damage that colonialism has caused throughout the history of humanity, including the assertion that we are all equal – a claim that we have long taken as truth. We may have the same physiology, one or another similar characteristic, whether physical or emotional, mainly because we are part of the same species, Homo sapiens, but we are distinct in a multitude of objective and subjective aspects. Retracing the path that led us to such a premise is long and tortuous, but essential for understanding the various forms of ancestry and connection with nature of which we are capable and composed.

Life is wild. This statement, defended by Antônio Bispo, Krenak and other important contemporary philosophers, seeks to escape the current incessantly reaffirmed logic that civilization is urban and that everything outside of cities is barbaric or primitive. The suggestion of these thinkers? That we be water, in matter and spirit. That, just like water, we have the capacity to move, overflow and change course and, thus, always reinvent ourselves to produce new memories for the future.

Ana Carolina Ralston