Étude pour un monument Tupinambá
Brazil / France
2022
Étude pour un monument Tupinambá is a research project that questions the meaning of photographic archives in museum collections as well as the place images have in the power relations between European culture and what is called the Brazilian territory. This visual story follows the last eleven ceremony cloaks of the Tupinambá tribe – artefacts made with feathers used during cannibalistic rituals – and Johan Maurits, the settler who initiated the transfer of these items to Europe in the 17th century. Today, the know-how of these cloaks is passed on via a heterogeneous collection of images, then returned to the Tupi descendants such as Glicélia, an indigenous activist fighting for the rights of aboriginal communities in Brazil.
Portfolio
About the artist
Born in 1985 in Brazil, Lívia Melzi lives and works in Paris. She has trained as an oceanographer, has been an artist in residence at the ENSP in Arles, has a master’s degree in photography and contemporary art from Paris 8 and is preparing a doctorate with the university of Zurich. She seeks to question through photography the domination mechanisms at play in the production, conservation and circulation of images. She is represented by the Ricardo Fernandes Gallery.