Modern science—in its 400 years since René Descartes (1596-1650)—has brought many good things to the world. However, at least three things only get worse every year: 1) greenhouse gas emissions (and consequent global warming); 2) accelerated biodiversity loss (which impacts water, air, land, and human health); and 3) social inequality (capital and resources are concentrated in the hands of a few).
Modern science itself has unequivocally demonstrated that these three problems require urgent solutions for the good of humanity and the planet. However, practical action in this direction has not kept pace with the evidence. This clearly indicates that modern science alone is not enough to reverse the increasingly worrying path the world has taken. In a world in a state of polycrisis, there is no knowledge that can be abandoned, as long as it is democratic and loving.
Art and spirituality, by touching emotions, are essential to driving the profound transformations humanity needs to embrace. Claudia Andujar's work promotes precisely these encounters, as necessary as they are unusual: of information with emotion, of the ancestral with the modern, of the sacred with the transgressive, of the south with the north, of the visible with the invisible. The universe these dialogues create is inhabited by a constellation of beings: human and more-than-human, shamans and mundane, urban and forest dwellers, migrants and stayers, artists and scientists. Claudia's universe anticipates the science of tomorrow: that which will emerge from the dialogue between all forms of loving and democratic knowledge, be they scientific, artistic, or spiritual.
Claudia Andujar and her universe: sustainability, science and spirituality.
Claudia Andujar is an international paradigm of humanism, built over decades of dedication to her photography. Her focus has always been primarily on segments of the Brazilian population who have lived on the margins of life, such as migrants from the Northeast, women, Afro-descendants, and indigenous people in Brazil, among others. Born into a Jewish family on June 12, 1931, in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, when she was five, her family moved to Hungary. A large part of her family was Jewish. Her father was imprisoned by the Nazis and died in a concentration camp. With her mother, young Claudia went into exile in New York during World War II, fleeing the Holocaust. Claudine Haas became Claudia Andujar when she married Spaniard Julio Andujar in the United States. In 1955, she came to live in São Paulo.
Since childhood, Claudia Andujar wrote poems and later turned to painting until she discovered photography. "In painting, I closed myself off. In photography, I opened myself up." Her most surprising political commitment was to shifting collective consciousness about the violence of the prevailing forms of hegemony in the country, by groups that have gone so far as to commit genocide, as in the case of the miners who were historically dispossessed of their lands and possessions and eliminated as peoples.
For Claudia Andujar, photography was her weapon of social "violence against violence," a dimension borrowed from Michel Foucault. The optical regime of her production was initially marked by the shared ethical values necessary for a compassionate gaze, sympathy, and alliance with the dominated, as well as the defense of life. Only later would it be appropriate to consider the aesthetic excellence of her photography.
Sustainability. Conservationist Claudia Andujar put her camera at the service of nature. Her photography exposed the world to the genocide of indigenous peoples in South America, the spoliation of indigenous lands and knowledge, illegal mining, and even the poisoning of Amazon rivers through the use of mercury.
Science. Advised by Darcy Ribeiro, Claudia Andujar set out to document indigenous societies through the prism of anthropological knowledge, including the symbolic life and material culture of indigenous peoples. Claudia Andujar has a history of over 150 years of using photography in this investigative process, alongside Sebastião Salgado, Milton Guran, Elza Lima, and others—mentioned here for the aesthetic dimension of their images.
Spirituality. In its early days, some non-white societies considered that photography "stole the soul" of those portrayed. Furthermore, indigenous societies were catechized by Catholic missionaries, a symbolic war now intensified by the exacerbated proselytism of evangelical sects. Claudia Andujar's delicate ethical respect for the differences and specificities of beliefs resulted in a unique "sacred art" by recording with formidable visual quality ceremonies, ritual props, and ceremonies such as the ingestion of religious hallucinogens, observing theogonies and unity among all beings that make up the earth: water, stones, mountains, plants, animals—a kingdom of nature in which humans are inscribed without any kind of hierarchy.
Credits
Claudia Andujar
Curador Convidado
Paulo Herkenhoff
Artistas
Claudia Andujar
Albert Frisch
Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira
Almires Martins
Armando de Queiroz
Bené Fonteles
Carlo Zacquini
Carlos Papa
Chico da Silva
Christus Nóbrega
Cildo Meireles
Denilson Baniwa
Edu Simões
Fiona Watson
Flávio de Carvalho
Frans Krajcberg
George Love
Guy Veloso
Guilherme Vaz
Hal Wildson
Hélio Melo
Jair Gabriel
Jan Fjeld
João Farkas
João Trevisan
Johann Feindt
Jorge Bodanzky
José Joaquim Freire
Lew Parrella
Kaio Lakaio
Margareth Mee
Marcelo Rodrigues
Maria Sibylla Merian
Mario Cravo Neto
Mário de Andrade
Martijn Van Nieuwenhuyzen
Maspã Huni Kuin
Maureen Bisilliat
Miguel Rio Branco
Milton Guran
Olney Krüse
Paula Sampaio
Paulo Lobo
Paulo Sampaio
Ricardo Ribenboim
Robert M Davies
Seba Calfuqueo
Sebastião Salgado
Selvagem (Ciclo)
Siri
Siron Franco
Solon Ribeiro
Thiago Martins de Melo
Tirry Pataxó
Valdir Cruz
Victor Moriyama
Walter Firmo
Xadalu Tupã Jekupé
Xauãna Pataxó
Curador do Museu do Amanhã
Fabio Scarano
Gerência Geral de Conteúdo
Camila Oliveira
Equipe Curatorial
Caetana Lara Resende
Julia Deccache
Julia Meira
Rafael Salimena
Lorena Peña
Redação
Fábio Scarano
Paulo Herkenhoff
Rafael Salimena
Camila Oliveira
Julia Meira
Equipe de Produção
Ingrid Vidal
Guilherme Venancio
Nathália Simonetti
Produção Artística
Karla Gama
Projeto Expográfico
Leila Scaf Rodrigues - LSR arquitetura
Projeto de Design
Verbo Arte Design
Fernando Leite
Alice Garambone
Projeto de Iluminação
Julio Katona
Assistente de Expografia
Leticia Nasser
Atendimento ao Público
Wagner Turques Guinesi
Alice Villa Frango
Nilson Da Silva Ramos
Alessandra Batista Da Conceicao Penna
Brenda Pinheiro De Oliveira
Caio Correa De Sousa
Caue De Albuquerque Barroso
Douglas Porto Velho
Fernando Lopes Barbosa
Gabriel Da Silva Ramos
Guilherme Augusto Gouveia
Igor Pereira Alencar
Ismael Freire De Almeida
Jose Americo Da Rocha Filho
Jose Francisco De Souza
Luis Rodrigo Dos Santos
Mariana Macedo Do Nascimento
Matheus Dos Santos Oliveira
Queren Priscila Oliveira De Souza
Rafael De Souza De Almeida
Raisa Medeiros De Oliveira
Shirlei De Oliveira Chagas
Vinicius Marcelo De Oliveira Dos Santos
Vitor Santos Da Silva
Yan Gomes Silveira
Educação Museal
Stephanie Santana
Renan Freira
Bruno Baptista
Bianca Paes Araújo
Fernanda de Castro
Juan Barbosa
Julia Mayer
Juliana Câmara
Marcus Andrade
Maria Luiza Lopes
Nicolle Portela
Nicolle Soalheiro
Thainá Nunes
Vinicius Andrade
Vinicius Valentino
Execução da Estrutura Cenográfica
Detagek
Gráfica
Ginga Design
Impressões Fotográficas
Estúdio 321
Thiago Barros Arte Lab
Estúdio Lupa
Estúdio Lukas Cravo
Molduras
Jacarandá Montagens
Metara
Montagem Fina
Kbedim
Instalações Audiovisuais
Luiz Lima
Ana Barth
Bruno Carreiro
Edson Castro
Vanderson Vieira
Inovatec Soluções Audiovisuais
Instalação Elétrica
Francisco Galdino
Diogo Freire
Marlon Vidal
Silas Miranda
Alexandre Souto
Jefton Elias
Ezequiel Tavares
Jose Petrucio
Camila Fraga
Produção de Montagem
Órbita
Equipe de Museologia
Tatiana Paz
Fabiana Motta
Camilla Brito
Museólogos
Flora Pinheiro
Mayara Motta
Daniele Santos
Débora Koury
Aluane de Sá
Paulo Laia
Seguro das obras
Howden Brasil
Ezze Seguros
Transporte de Obras
Millenium Transportes
Revisão de Texto
Jade Medeiros
Versão em inglês
Jade Medeiros
Versão em espanhol
Larissa Bontempi
Acessibilidade tátil
Paju SA Engenharia
Objetos sensoriais
Luiza Kemp
Acessibilidade de conteúdo
Juliete Viana
Projeto de emergência e elétrica
PI Projetos e Instalações
Agradecimentos
Jornal do Brasil
Instituto Moreira Salles
Andrea Zabrieszach Santos
Marco Lucchesi
Monica BN
Roberta Maiorana
Vânia Leal
Ricardo Metara
Thiago Barros
Victor Correia
Silvia Cintra
Victor Lucas Santos
Galeria Almeida e Dale
Stefania Paiva
Cauê Alves
Yuri Firmeza
Welington Rodrigues
Thiago Martins de Melo
Marília Razuk
Blanche Marie Evin
Guy Veloso
Fundo Z / Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR)
Marco Cirenza
Tirry Pataxó
Galeria Cana
Ronaldo Simões
Carolina Olinto
Hussein Rimi
Marcelo Guarnieri
Museu Judaico do Rio de Janeiro
Eliane Pszczol
Marcelo Campos
Luiz Chrysostomo de Oliveira
Fotoativa
FotoRio
Museu Iberê Camargo
Airton Krenak
Anna Dantes
Selvagem
Movimento Indígena das Escolas Vivas
Paulo Gurgel Valente
Ricardo Cantarino
Carlo Cirenza / Carcara Photo Art
Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB) / Universidade de São Paulo
FGV Conhecimento
Sidnei Gonzalez
Renata de Paula
UNICAMP
Estúdio Denilson Baniwa
Leo Pedrosa
Roberto Alban
Mauro Saraiva / Tsara