Illegal mining in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil and Venezuela poses a danger not only to the region’s fragile ecosystem, but also to the indigenous communities that inhabit these regions. Today, the struggle of the Yanomami people, the largest group in the Amazon, is more urgent than ever. For the past five decades, activist and photographer Claudia Andujar has worked with the Yanomami to defend their indigenous rights and sovereignty. Photography has been an important tool to increase visibility to protect people, their land and their culture. His encounter with the Yanomami people in 1971 transformed his artistic practice into a militant life. The Yanomami Struggle at The Shed is a comprehensive exhibit dedicated to Andujar’s collaboration and friendship with the Yanomami people. The exhibition presents more than 200 of his photographs in dialogue with paintings and drawings by a new generation of Yanomami artists: André Taniki, Ehuana Yaira, Joseca Mokahesi, Orlando Nakɨ uxima, Poraco Hɨko, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe and Vital Warasi, as well as the shaman David Kopenawa. Visitors will also discover new video works by contemporary Yanomami filmmakers Aida Harika, Edmar Tokorino, Morzaniel Ɨramari and Roseane Yariana.
In a conversation held on Zoom, Claudia Andujar and anthropologist Bruce Albert, co-author of The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman (with Davi Kopenawa), discussed their experience and struggle for the Yanomami people and the Amazon rainforest.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Silvia Benedetti: Can you talk about yourself?
Claudia Andujar: I am 91 years old and I was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1931. I spent my childhood in Oradea, in Transylvania, a place that sometimes belongs to Hungary, sometimes to Romania. … It was a difficult situation when the Germans took control of Oradea during World War II. At the time, it belonged to Romania and I didn’t speak the language; I spoke Hungarian. I was very afraid of being expelled. I tried to hide from people I didn’t know. I am a war survivor. My father’s family was Jewish and they were sent to a concentration camp, where they all died.
After this very difficult childhood, I was invited by my uncle to come to New York. He was a doctor and the only member of my family who had survived the war. I enrolled in the humanities program at Hunter College. Around the age of 15, I became a very independent person. I had to work at Macy’s and go to school at the same time to survive. For the same reason, I decided to become a teacher. Later, I decided to travel to the Americas. I went to South America and made my living teaching French.
SB: What is your connection with the Yanomami people?
CALIFORNIA: I decided to travel and was interested in taking pictures in the tropical part of Brazil, and that’s how I arrived in 1974 in the Amazon and among the Yanomami. Someone told me about this very isolated people that no one had photographed before. Because of all my past life and difficulties, I decided to try to get to know the Yanomami and see what I could do for them. Over time I became a photographer. It took me many years to understand who these people were and how they lived. There are approximately 3,000 Yanomami in the Amazon. I don’t know everyone, but I understand what it means to work with them, and my background is very much linked to theirs. I suffered a lot.
Bruce Albert: I had spent a year at the Catrimani River when I heard of a fearless white woman traveling through the forest. I knew that she was a foreigner, that she was near the border and that she was talking about the situation of the Yanomami – the ring road that crosses their land and all the bad things that are happening in the area. … We were both close friends of the Yanomami, and we were worried. We were also both concerned about the future of the Yanomami, and together we wrote the first document to condemn the carving up of Yanomami territory, then we organized a health program with the NGO International Survival.
I met her in person in 1978, in the deep forest of the Catrimani region. Claudia arrived in the middle of the night driving a black Volkswagen Beetle. At the time, the military opened a road from Boa Vista, the state capital of Roraima, through Yanomami territory. I slept in a Yanomami collective house near a mission. When I saw her arrive in the dark, it was as if she was escaping from her own photograph. I only saw his silhouette and the light from his car.
SB: How did Claudia meet the Yanomami?
BA: Claudia met Carlo Zacquini, an unusual Italian Catholic missionary, in the Catrimani. He was not interested in converting the Yanomami, but in learning from them. He spent his time hunting with the Yanomami. There was a priest in the mission and he complained all the time because Carlo was always in the forest and never worked in the mission. He had been with the Yanomami since 1968, spoke the language and introduced Claudia. They traveled together in the forest from 1974 to 1977, when she was expelled [by the military]. … My background was more traditional — I was a university student in France, and I was doing a doctorate, but I was more into action. I came to Brazil in 1975 to help the Yanomami during the construction of the ring road. At the time, few people worked with the Yanomami in Brazil. There were people from the Venezuelan side.
SB: How did your collaboration to work with the Yanomami people and protect their region come about?
BA: At the end of 1977, Claudia was expelled from the indigenous territory. They gave him a week to collect all his belongings from the mission station. The military saw her as a threat to national security since she was a foreigner talking about the situation of the Yanomami and all the bad things that were happening in the region, and against the dictatorship. She was very visible. She had been speaking publicly since 1974, and she was Swiss with an American passport. Together, we wrote the first document, condemning the fragmentation of Yanomami territory into 19 small islands surrounded by colonizers and agricultural projects. In 1978, we created an NGO, Commission for the Creation of Yanomami Park (CCPY), with Carlos Zacquini.
SB: Claudia, what makes your photographs special?
CALIFORNIA: I decided to dedicate my photography to getting to know the Yanomami better. I think it was very important because I discovered that by getting to know different types of human beings [photography] could be very useful to get to know them better.
BA: Many other photographers have worked with the Yanomami, but there is a distance with them. When the Yanomami look at Claudia, they smile. They look at someone in their family and they express their feelings, and that’s very rare. … Fifty years ago she started mixing politics and art and working on social justice, and today everyone wants to do that, everyone talks about social justice and decolonization. This struggle has to do with his past.
SB: What have you learned from the Yanomami and what can they teach the world?
BA: Since the beginning of our civilization, we have oppressed people. The Yanomami thought is the opposite: they put all living beings on the same level: humans, animals and plants. It’s a very beautiful and revolutionary way of looking at the world. We could do much better by considering other living beings and cultures. The Yanomami have such a sense of humor that they never complain, even when faced with the worst of tragedies.
SB: Things got worse in the Amazon…
BA: Yes, that’s another conversation. It’s worse, but we still resist and so do they. Additionally, a new generation of Yanomami and allies are working. Claudia’s lesson is that the struggle must continue.
The Yanomami Struggle continues at The Shed (545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan) through April 16. The exhibit was curated by Thyago Nogueira, under the direction of Yanomami shaman and leader Davi Kopenawa.
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