NHE'Porã Exhibition: Memory and Transformation comes to the CCVM

São Luís, the capital of Maranhão, will be the third Brazilian city to host the traveling exhibition NHE’Porã: Memory and Transformation, about indigenous languages in Brazil. Organized by the Portuguese Language Museum, co-organized by the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center (CCVM), the exhibition is coordinated and sponsored by the Vale Cultural Institute, through the Federal Culture Incentive Law — Rouanet Law. The exhibition will be on display at the CCVM from August 10 to November 22, 2024, with a series of new features compared to the original version, held at the headquarters of the Portuguese Language Museum in São Paulo. The opening will take place at 19:00 during the Indigenas.br – Indigenous Music Festival at the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center.

The exhibition is curated by indigenous artist and master in Human Rights Daiara Tukano, and co-curated by anthropologist Majoí Gongora. The Portuguese Language Museum is an institution of the Secretariat of Culture, Economy and Creative Industry of the Government of São Paulo.

Nhe’Porã: Memory and Transformation offers an immersion in the history, memory, and current reality of the languages of Brazil’s indigenous peoples, through ethnographic and archaeological objects, audiovisual installations and works of art. The exhibition seeks to show other points of view about the material and immaterial territories, stories, memories and identities of these peoples, bringing to light their trajectories of struggle and resistance, as well as the songs and charms of their cultures.

One of the novelties of the itinerary in São Luís are the objects collected at archaeological sites in Maranhão that belong to the collection of the Center for Research and Natural History and Archaeology of Maranhão. Among them, a ceramic bowl from the Tupi-Guarani tradition with internal decoration and two semilunar axes. There will also be artifacts from the collections of the Casa de Nhozinho Museum, such as ear discs of the Canela people, and from the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center itself, such as maracas of the Guajajara, Gamela and Canela peoples, horns of the Timbira people, the Maruanã of the Wayana people and the Tembetá of the Ka’apor people.

“Nhe’s Porã is a necessary and urgent exhibition. It allows those who visit it to delve into the universe of the original Brazilian peoples: there are more than 267 peoples, speaking more than 150 different languages. By coordinating and supporting the holding of the exhibition together with the Portuguese Language Museum and UNESCO, we contribute to further signifying the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. The itinerary of Nhe’Porã follows the circulation of the exhibition in 2024, allowing more people to learn about the original peoples and thus reflect on different ways of creating, living and living together,” says Hugo Barreto, president of the Instituto Cultural Vale.

“It is with joy that we took Nhe’Porã to the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center, in São Luís. Itinerances allow more people to have access to the diversity and the urgent need to preserve more than a hundred indigenous languages still spoken today in Brazil. Each cultural space receiving this project has inserted pieces from local museum collections, drawing attention to these important collections. The project celebrates the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, promoted by UNESCO, and highlights the multilingual perspective of the Brazilian territory, also focusing on the influence of indigenous peoples on Brazilian Portuguese,” says Renata Motta, executive director of the Portuguese Language Museum.

Learn more about the exhibition

“Language is thought, language is spirit, language is a way of seeing the world and enjoying life.” This is how curator Daiara Tukano describes the starting point of Nhe’Porã: Memory and Transformation. The immersion begins with the very name of the exhibition, which comes from the Guarani Mbya language: nhe’means spirit, breath, life, word, speech; and porã means beautiful, good. Together, the two words mean “beautiful words”, “good words” – that is, sacred words that give life to the human experience on earth.

With the participation of around 50 indigenous professionals, the exhibition is co-curated by anthropologist Majoí Gongora; special consultancy from Luciana Storto, a linguist specializing in the study of indigenous languages; in dialogue with the special curator of the Portuguese Language Museum, Isa Grinspum Ferraz.

The exhibition has a circular logic guided by a river of words spelled in various indigenous languages that crosses the entire exhibition space, connecting the rooms in a continuous cycle. In São Luís, the work Jaguars and the New Time, by Tamikuã Txihi, welcomes visitors in the lobby. Following the flow of the river, the public reaches the outdoor area, where they are faced with a forest of indigenous languages, made of fabrics, representing the great diversity that exists today in Brazil. In this forest, the public will be able to learn about the linguistic families and sounds of several indigenous languages.

The next room, “Language is Memory”, brings up stories of contact, violence, and conflict resulting from the invasion of indigenous territories from the 16th century to the present day, problematizing the colonial process that declares itself “civilizational”. In this environment, other stories will be told through archaeological objects, works by indigenous artists, documentary records, audiovisual resources, multimedia, and maps created especially for the exhibition with data on the distribution of the population and indigenous languages throughout the Brazilian territory.

The transformations of indigenous languages are addressed in content that explores the resilience, richness, and multiplicity of indigenous peoples’ forms of expression. “We questioned the fact that we are described as agraph people, without writing, but our paintings are also written – just not alphabetical,” explains Daiara Tukano.

In the third room, the public will learn about the plurality of contemporary indigenous actions and creations, distributed in thematic niches, based on their role in different spaces of society, such as their activities in teaching, research and artistic languages. In the space it is also possible to watch scenes from the audiovisual work March of the Indigenous Peoples, directed by the filmmaker Kamikia Kisêdjê.

As they follow the course of the river, visitors reach a room, nocturnal environment, an introspective dreamlike atmosphere that allows contact with the force present in the songs of masters and masters of beautiful words. The river that ran along the exhibition floor now rises up the wall like a big snake until it transforms into clouds of words – preparing for the rain that will flow again over the river itself, continuing the cycle.

Itinerance

The exhibition NHE’Porã: Memory and Transformation was originally exhibited at the Portuguese Language Museum. Running between October 2022 and April 2023 at the institution located in the capital of São Paulo, it attracted more than 189 thousand visitors.

In February 2024, the exhibition began traveling to other cities. The first to receive it was Belém, the capital of Pará. There, it was on display at the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi until July 2024.

In March, between the 14th and the 26th, a version of the project was exhibited at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. At the time, there was also the cycle of debates on Indigenous Languages in South America: Memory and Transformation, at the Collège de France, organized by the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Socialie, the Collège de France, and the Portuguese Language Museum.

Between April and July 2024, Nhe’s Porã: Memory and Transformation was one of the exhibitions at the Rio Janeiro Art Museum (MAR).

Partners of the traveling exhibition in São Luís – MA

The traveling exhibition NHE’Porã: Memory and Transformation in São Luís is coordinated and sponsored by the Vale Cultural Institute, through the Federal Culture Incentive Law – Rouanet Law, and is co-organized by the Vale Maranhão Cultural Center. The project has cooperation from UNESCO in the context of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) and in partnership with the Socio-Environmental Institute, Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo – USP and the National Museum of Indigenous Peoples of FUNAI. Local partners are the Center for Research and Natural History and Archaeology of Maranhão and the Casa de Nhozinho Museum. It is carried out by the Portuguese Language Museum, an institution of the Secretariat of Culture, Economy and Creative Industry of the Government of the State of São Paulo, and of the Ministry of Culture – Federal Government.