Ancestral Futures presents a new and generation of artists working with photography, video and collage to address contemporary Brazil society and history by reinterpreting its visual archives and traditions.

With fierce irony and surprising beauty, these artists denounce the historical violence against Afro-Brazilian, immigrant, indigenous and LGBTQIA+ peoples by exposing the construction of stereotypes and disputing the narration of the country’s official history. Their political attitude is also expressed by challenging the integrity and the formal qualities of the photographic frame.

The title of the show echoes indigenous philosopher and activist Ailton Krenak’s book Ancestral Future, which challenges the Western idea of progress as a chronologically and linear time to propose a future that is built by looking back to essential elements of the past.

Artists like Denilson Baniwa, Ventura Profana, Gê Viana, Mayara Ferrão, Yhuri Cruz and Igi Lọ́lá Ayedun use photo collage and AI to criticize colonialism and create visual archives with new representations of beauty, affection and spirituality.

Collective Lakapoy and filmmaker Lincoln Péricles also challenge official narratives by presenting photographic archives produced by their own communities.

Indigenous leader Celia Tupinambá denounces the European colonial expropriation of indigenous peoples by reclaiming the return to Brazil of the sacred Tupinambá cloak and reviving its dormant sewing tradition with the women of her village.

Artists such as Rafa Bqueer, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro and Melissa Oliveira use direct photography and video to show how people’s bodies can also function as an archival territory where ancestral and spirit traditions are presented, disputed and remixed.

Paulo Nazareth's self portraits function as an introduction to this new generation`s interest in performance and photography as a way to expose society`s prejudice and racism.

- Thyago Nogueira