Bauhaus-Universität Weimar: summaery2020: Projects

Arara Encantada takes flight

PhotoPhoto

Indigenous Shawãdawa Aldeia (Village) in Acre, NW Brazil and guests in February 2020
© Flávio Salles

Txãdá Shawã, Daoxa Vaxã, their niece, and a relative during the Mariri traditional ceremony. Feb. 2020
© Vanessa Ramos-Velasquez

Arara Encantada is an umbrella project, containing the Ararinha shoes and accessories development, a sustainable project that reclaims the Hevea Brasiliensis (rubber tree) to the indigenous Shawãdawa. Ararinha will eventually sustain the families who will be the caretakers of the two landplots, where Associação Arara Encantada will be built, the articulator of a multifaceted effort to keep the forest standing in the surrounding region.
© Daosha Vaxã

Txãdá Shawã and Daoxa Vaxã, the initiators, along with myself, of the project Arara Encantada Cultural and Spiritual Center and the crowdfunding campaign to establish the basic infrastructure of the reforestation effort.
© Courtesy of Txãdá Shawã and Daoxa Vaxã

The plan for the development of the Arara Encantada Cultural and Spiritual Center, which will have an infrastructure to receive outside guests for ceremonies organized a few times a year and art
© Drawing by Txãdá Shawã.

The landplot has an adjacent piece of land that borders the river Juruá. One of the goals of our crowdfunding campaign is to purchase this 50-Hectare plot of land for 3.000 EUR to secure passage to fluvial transportation. This fluvial link to Porto Walter and Cruzeiro do Sul is paramount to sustainably transport the families and excedent produce (fruits and vegetables), plus other forest yields such as seeds, essential oils, and Ararinha latex sandals. These products will guarantee the income and trade for the five families who will be caring for 100 Hectares of land containing a rich biodiversity of primary and secondary forest.
©

Project information

submitted by
Vanessa Maia Ramos-Velasquez

Co-Authors
Vanessa Maia Ramos-Velasquez, Txãdá Shawã, Daosha Vaxã

Mentors
Shawãdawa indigenous leaders of Porto Walter, Acre, Brazil. At Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Prof. Julia Bee

Faculty:
Art and Design

Degree programme:
Art and Design/Fine Art/Media Art (Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.))

Type of project presentation
– Other –

Semester
Summer semester 2020

Links
https://www.betterplace.me/arara...
http://quietrevolution.me/PhD_PR...

Contributors:
Shawãdawa Volksvertreter aus Acre, brasilianische Amazonien.

Project description

“Arara Encantada” is a reforestation project in the Amazon (State of Acre) with a crowdfunding campaign to establish a cultural center with five Shawãdawa indigenous families as caretakers of 100 Hectares of primary and secondary forest amidst kilometers of pastures of cattle ranches, now abandoned. This project is an unexpected and serendipitous development of my Ph.D. fieldwork in the Amazonian region interviewing indigenous leaderships about ancestral philosophies related to nature.

Crowdfunding campaign at www.betterplace.me/arara-encantada-takes-flight

This project will be further developed at the Berlin branch of Associação Cultural e Espiritual Arara Encantada via my post-doc already planned at Bauhaus University Weimar. My post-doc will document the entire process of setting up this association with the Shawãdawa representatives, the construction of the infrastructure of the Arara Encantada center in the Amazon in the State of Acre, the reforestation project, the development of partnerships for cultural and scientific exchange with universities, the building of sustainable projects to keep the forest alive as well as guaranteeing the healthy and creative way of (sustainable) life of the indigenous Shawãdawa families caring for the land.

Email: vanessa.maia.ramos-velasquez[at]uni-weimar.de

Exhibition Location / Event Location

– ONLINE –