Indigenous Art and Activism Merge in 'Um outro céu' Digital Platform

An interactive digital platform titled 'Um outro céu' merges art with political ecology and anthropology to spotlight Brazil's Indigenous struggles. The project centers on a map of the Northeast region, created by artist and designer Denilson Baniwa, which uses Indigenous graphic symbols to pinpoint specific territorial conflicts like deforestation and resource exploitation. Alongside these conflict markers, photographs link to artworks by fifteen invited Indigenous artists, including Arissana Pataxó, Glicéria Tupinambá, and Ailton Krenak, who each received a 2,000 reais award. The initiative originated from an international academic research network, 'Sustainable' Development and Atmospheres of Violence, coordinated by Felipe Milanez and Mary Menton and funded by the British Academy. It later expanded to include an emergency research plan on COVID-19's impacts, which project coordinators Jurema Machado, Felipe Tuxá, and Felipe Milanez describe as revealing a context of genocide. All research scholarships for the project's academic components are held by Indigenous students, a methodological choice to center Indigenous knowledge. The platform explicitly connects artistic expression to ongoing land disputes and resistance, arguing that Indigenous territories are inherently sites of anticolonial struggle and creative world-making.