ENVISIONING MORE-THAN-HUMAN PLACE-BASED RECIPROCITIES THROUGH THE ART OF DENILSON BANIWA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4215/rm2025.e24010

Abstract

The essay aims to problematize how the reciprocity between art and life in the artwork of Denilson Baniwa enables the envisioning of more-than-human place-based connections. It draws on creative geographies and a phenomenological approach to interpret his artworks as expressions of Amerindian placeness. The provocations embedded in these art works incite horizons of meaning that fracture anthropocentrism through the geographic experience of perspectivism. They articulate a sense of placeness woven through transformative topologies of becoming-together with diverse modes of being-in-and-of-the Earth, whether human or otherwise. In this light, Baniwa’s artworks may be understood as a contribution to the envisioning of polyphonic reciprocities of co-dwelling among more-than-human kin/entities, interwoven within the care-driven fabric of places.

Keywords: Perspectivism; More-than-human Worlds; Contemporary Indigenous Art.

Author Biography

Carlos Roberto Bernardes de Souza Júnior, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia (GO), Brazil

PhD student in Geography at the Institute of Socio-Environmental Studies (IESA) of the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), with a sandwich internship at the Université de Paris (U-PARIS). Member of the Laboratory of Studies and Research of Territorial Dynamics (LABOTER) - UFG and of the Laboratoire Dynamiques sociales et recomposition des espaces (LADYSS) - U-PARIS.

References

ABRAM, D. Becoming Animal. New York: Vintage Books, 2010.
BANIWA, D. Aquela gente que se transforma em bicho. Behance, 18 out 2020. Disponível em: https://www.behance.net/gallery/106287027/aquela-gente-que-se-transforma-em-bicho#. Acesso em 1 mar 2025.
BANIWA, D. Tudo é gente. Behance, 2 jan 2021. Disponível em: https://www.behance.net/gallery/110533365/tudo-gente. Acesso em 9 jan 2025.
BANIWA, D. Ñewída: the anthropomorphic get along gang. Estado da Arte, v.3, n.2, p.553-557, 2022.
BELLACASA, M. P. Matters of care: Speculative ethics in more-than-human worlds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
BREWER II, J. P.; JOHNSON, J. Reciprocity: An Ethos “More Than Human”. GeoHumanities, v. 9, n. 2, p.315-332, 2023.
CASEY, E. S. Body, Self and Landscape: A geophilosophical inquiry into the Place-World. In: ADAMS, P. C.; HOELSCHER, S.; TILL, K. E. (Orgs.) Textures of place. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, p.403-425.
CASTRO, E. V. Metafísicas canibais. São Paulo: Ubu Editora, 2018.
DANOWSKI, D.; CASTRO, E. V. Há mundo por vir? Desterro: Florianópolis, 2017.
DE LA CADENA, M. Earth Beings: Ecologies of practice across Andean worlds. Duke University Press: London, 2015.
DESPRET, V. Responding bodies and partial affinities in human-animal worlds. Theory, culture & society, v.30, n.7/8, p.51-76, 2013.
ESBELL, J. Arte indígena contemporânea e o grande mundo. Select, 22 jan 2018. Editorial. Disponível em: https://select.art.br/arte-indigena-contemporanea-e-o-grande-mundo/. Acesso em: 6 jan 2025.
FAUSTO, C. Ardis da Arte: imagem, agência e ritual na Amazônia. São Paulo: EDUSP, 2023.
GOETTERT, J. D.; MOTA, J. G. B. Gentes|terras: o ouvir mútuo das Geografias Indígenas. Revista NERA, v. 23, n. 54, p. 9-34, 2020.
GOLDSTEIN, I. S.; SOUZA, A. B. B.; BARCELOS NETO, A. B. Processos curatoriais e exposições de artes indígenas na/da América Latina. MODOS, v. 8, n. 2, p. 260-292, 2024.
HAWKINS, H. For creative Geographies: Geography, Visual Arts and the Making of Worlds. Routledge: London, 2014.
KARJALAINEN, P. T. Place in Urwind: A humanist geography view. Geograficidade. v. 2, n. 2, p.4-22, 2012.
LAGROU, E. Arte indígena no Brasil. Belo Horizonte: C/ Arte, 2009.
LAGROU, E.; VELTHEM, L. H. As artes indígenas: olhares cruzados. BIB, n.87, v.3, p.133-156, 2018.
LIMA, J. S. O sentido geográfico da identidade: metafenomenologia da alteridade Payayá. 2019. Tese (Doutorado em Geografia) – Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2019.
LORIMER, H. Herding memories of humans and animals. Environment and Planning D: Society and space. v. 24, n.1, p.497-518, 2006.
MACIEL, L. C. “Perspectivismo ameríndio”. In: Enciclopédia de Antropologia. São Paulo: USP, Departamento de Antropologia, 2019.
MERLEAU-PONTY, M. A prosa do mundo. São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2012.
ROSE, D. B. Death and grief in a world of kin. In: HARVEY, G. (Org.) The handbook of contemporary animism. London: Routledge, 2014, p.137-147.
SANTOS, R. R.; HERNANDEZ, M. I. D. Transgresión, opción decolonial y arte brasileño. Latin American Research Review, v.57, p.80-99, 2022.
SCHMIDT, S. W. Body and Place as the Noetic-Noematic Structure of Geographical Experience. Research in Phenomenology, v.50, p.261-281, 2020.
SEAMON, D. Life takes place: phenomenology, lifewords and place making. New York: Routledge, 2018.
SILVA, É. R.; BASTOS, V. O. Oito vezes arte indígena contemporânea – 8 X AIC. Palindromo, v.15, n.35, p.269-287, 2023.
SINGH, N. M. The nonhuman turn or a re-turn to animism? Valuing life along and beyond capital. Dialogues in Human Geography, v.12, n.1, p.84-89, 2022.
TUAN, Y. Humanist Geography: an individual’s search for meaning. Staunton: George F. Thompson, 2012.
VEDOVATTO, M.; LIMA-PAYAYÁ, J. S.; MARANDOLA JR, E. O pensamento nóstrico Añnu. Cadernos Cajuína, v.9, n.1, p.1-15, 2024.
WOOD, D. Reoccupy Earth: Notes toward Other Beginning. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019.
Published
06/06/2025
How to Cite
SOUZA JÚNIOR, Carlos Roberto Bernardes de. ENVISIONING MORE-THAN-HUMAN PLACE-BASED RECIPROCITIES THROUGH THE ART OF DENILSON BANIWA. Mercator, Fortaleza, v. 24, june 2025. ISSN 1984-2201. Available at: <http://www.mercator.ufc.br/mercator/article/view/e24010>. Date accessed: 09 aug. 2025. doi: https://doi.org/10.4215/rm2025.e24010.
Citation Formats
Issue
Vol 24 (2025)
Section
ARTICLES

Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain the copyright and grant MERCATOR the right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows the sharing of the work with recognition of the authorship of the work and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are authorized to sign additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (e.g., publish in an institutional repository or as a book chapter), with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are allowed and encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their personal page) at any point before or during the editorial process, as this can generate productive changes as well as increase the impact and citation of the published work (see The Effect of Free Access).
  4. Authors are responsible for the content of the manuscript published in the journal.