Lunch-talk on Cosmotechnics and Indigenous Technologies with Fernanda Pitta

You can register for the seminar and vegan sandwich here .

Tupinambá clubs are important artifacts of Tupinambá heritage. Both ritual and functional objects, some Tupinambá clubs are preserved in European museums. There is no trace of these objects in Brazilian collections. For the Tupinambá, knowledge of and access to clubs is fundamental to their memory, a way to reconnect with their identity and history.

Anthropologist and artist Glicéria Tupinambá has studied the objects produced by her people, as well as the images and stories about them. In addition to criticizing colonization, her goal is to collectively recall knowledge and techniques that have been dormant by the process of colonization, knowledge that exists and resists, and that connects to constitute a cosmotechnics, in the words of Yuk Hui (2016). In her investigation of the Tupinambá clubs, she combines cosmology, historical, iconographic and stylistic research of objects with observation using technical analysis and heritage science. Her goal is to rediscover what the naked eye does not see, but that ancestral technology knows is there. Glicéria Tupinambá represents Brazil  at the 2023-2024 Venice Biennale.

Fernanda Pitta presents the research collaboration that decodes what decay means indigenous peoples: the way museums have been addressing collecting and preserving indigenous artifacts. By positioning as the center of the discussion indigenous understandings of heritage and preservation, the research puts access and interpretation strategies in the forefront of the debate.

This project is supported by a group of researchers: Jessica Tupinambá, independent researcher, Mariana Françozo, Leiden University, Brigitte Thierion, CREPAL, University Paris 3, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Pascale Derobert, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Renata Valente, Museu Nacional da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Fernanda Pitta, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, Decay Without Mourning Researcher, Bruno Moreschi. The research is part of the research project Decay Without Mourning: Future Thinking Heritage Practices, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (GI21-0001).

The talk is co-hosted by Decay Without Mourning: Future Thinking Heritage Practices, the Environmental Humanities Laboratory and the Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History.

Fernanda Pitta is Assistant Professor and Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, MAC-USP. Her research line at the Museum is Curatorial Processes. She is a Member of the Histarthe Research Group. Fernanda holds a PhD in Visual Arts from ECA-USP (2013); Her fellowships include the Association of Museum Curators in the International Engagement Program (2017-2018), the International Summer Group Program of The Clark Art Institute (2017), and the Library Grant from the Getty Research Institute (2022). Previously, Pitta worked at Pinacoteca de São Paulo as senior curator from 2014-2022. She has curated a great number of exhibitions, including: Eleonore Koch: on the scene (2024); Through the streets: modern life and urban experiences in the art of the United States, 1893-1976 (2022); Nobody would have believed: Alvim Correa and 10 contemporary artists; Artist's work: Image and Self-image (1816-1929); We are many: experiments on colectivity; Laura Lima: taylorshop. She holds an APCA Award for best retrospective for In the very place: an anthology of the artwork of Ana Maria Tavares, 2015. Her work has been featured at Art Forum, Bravo, Arte Brasileiros and Select, and she has published at Texte zur Kunst, Revista Modos, Concinnitas, among others.