IN RELATION WITH… (2026)
Duration: 45:00
The performance-installation brings together Indigenous philosophies as interconnected systems of care and more-than-human action-concepts toward Earth.
The performative activation leaves its traces as an installation at the exhibit Die Zukunft Ist Indigene at Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum.
Media: Natural fibre cloth, organic red wool yarn, needle, red crayons, untreated paper strips, annatto (urucum) seeds, audiovisual projection.
I have created a video to play in the framing wall connecting the following video materials:
Ailton Krenak, September 4, 1987,
defending the amendment of the Union of Indigenous Peoples at the Brazilian National Constituent Assembly,
Plenary of the Chamber of Deputies.
(by special permission, courtesy of Ailton Krenak)
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Ailton Krenak citations from an interview for Cult Magazine, 2019.562
(by special permission, courtesy of Ailton Krenak)
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Vanessa Ramos-Velasquez
video excerpts from the installation
The Coming Catastrophe and Its Possible Decelerators//The Future is Ancestral
2023
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Ailton Krenak em conversa com Sidarta Ribeiro
August 25, 2025
“Não temos planeta B”
Encontro Futuro Vivo: Artistas, cientistas e pensadores debatem o futuro do planeta
(by special permission, courtesy of Ailton Krenak and Vivo/Telefônica)
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translation and subtitles
Vanessa Ramos-Velasquez
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RT 36:00
The performative activation happened as follows:
– Video started playing with the first video of Ailton Krenak's intervention in 1987. It transitioned to three citations of Ailton Krenak in an interview from 2019 reflecting on his 1987 intervention. The video proceeded with images of my own feet on a mound of earth. It morphs into a mound of earth and a suspended bowl of annatto seeds. During this long video section, I placed each of the 10 cloth sacks containing annatto seeds on the floor in front of the video wall.
– Red wool threads demarcated the cloth area in a round circle on the floor.
– I opened the cloth sacs revealing the seeds. I arranged them to come together like a territory, stitched them as such with red wool thread.
– I proceeded to thread the strips of paper to the ends of the "territorial fabric." The strips of paper carry the names of Indigenous philosophies of the Amazon and the Andes. I wrote these with red crayons on the strips of paper.
– Following this action, the second video of Ailton Krenak (2min.) plays. It is an excerpt of his public talk in Brazil in 2025. I stop stitching and sit down to watch the video.
– The video ends, I leave the crayons and stitching needles on the floor near the paper strips (alluding to the possibility that this action can be continued by the visiting public) and exit.
– Video credits roll, END.
The various Indigenous philosophies, actions, elements, and unified nature-culture relationships are present.
Filosofias Indígenas das terras baixas e altas…
Amazônicas e Andinas
Kichwa philosophies
Sumaq Kawsay (mucho más que “Das Gute Leben”)
Alli Kawsay,
Ayni (reciprocity)
Ayllu (web of relations with family,
and with community: Llaqta)
Spiritual Geographies
Tawantinsuyo: the Inca four realms:
Apus (sacred mountains)
Grandfather rivers
Watu, o Grande avô (Rio Doce) do Povo Krenak
Opará, o Grande avô (Rio São Francisco) do Povo Kariri-Xocó
Tecnologia-ancestral-presente para todas as gerações
Urihi / Terra-Floresta Yanomami
Terra-Planeta
Plantas Maestras
Low to no-impact technologies
Dreaming collectively
“Yanantin”
Huk andino iskay kay, espiritual hinallataq físico pachakunapi equilibrio maskhaq.
The Andean duality that seeks balance between the spiritual and physical parts.
Água
Terra Preta de Índio
Fogo
Ar
Pisar devagarinho na Terra
Escutar os pássaros
Acreditar nos sinais da Natureza
Construir subjetividades e afetos
Corpo-Membrana
Mãe Terra
Red colored crayons have been left next to the strips of paper so that the visiting public can also write on them tracing what is already there faintly in pencil, or make their own contributions.
