Everything Sounds: Shared Meanings Between Humans and Non-Humans

FLEXA is pleased to announce Everything Sounds: Shared Meanings Between Humans and Non-Humans, an exhibition that brings together the works of four of the most significant names in contemporary Amazonian Indigenous art, all of whom were recently featured in the latest Venice Biennales: Jaider Esbell (Macuxi; Roraima, Brazil, 1979 – São Paulo, 2021), Santiago Yahuarcani (Uitoto; Pucaurquillo, Peru, 1960), Rember Yahuarcani (Uitoto; Pebas, Peru, 1985), and Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe (Yanomami; Alto Orinoco, Venezuela, 1971). The exhibition, opening on August 23, is accompanied by a critical essay written by Peruvian curator Miguel A. López.

Acquiring knowledge through experience, Jaider, Santiago, Rember, and Sheroanawe did not receive traditional artistic or academic training. Their skills stem from observation and a profound relationship with nature, their families, and their communities. As Miguel A. López notes, these artists are part of a “creative constellation” that, over the past three decades, has reshaped the very notion of contemporary art. For Indigenous peoples, art is also a tool of preservation—of their histories and knowledge. The works on view in this exhibition reaffirm the continuities between humans, animals, plants, territories, and spiritual worlds, echoing calls for respect toward all forms of existence and urging a halt to the rampant exploitation of natural resources.

Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe’s work consists of a delicate visual repertoire built on the rhythmic repetition of motifs on handmade paper or canvas, evoking seeds, fruits, insects, leaves, and branches. Santiago Yahuarcani draws on Indigenous mythical narratives in his paintings, featuring characters typical of these stories, such as guardians and hybrid animal-creatures. His son, Rember Yahuarcani, creates large-scale landscapes that explore abstract dreams, imagining an Indigenous future through vibrant forms and colors. Jaider Esbell’s paintings, with their meticulous and complex iconography, pay homage to every small element—animals, plants, human and spiritual beings—capable of connecting us with spirituality.

According to Miguel A. López, the repertoire of these four artists sheds light on both visible and invisible worlds that persist despite attempts at erasure. While these works are often linked to the contemporary ecological collapse, the curator suggests that the interpretation can go further, inviting us to look back at the past: the logic of erasure has existed since the moment Indigenous communities saw their resources dispossessed.

Bringing together the works of Jaider Esbell, Santiago Yahuarcani, Rember Yahuarcani, and Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Miguel concludes, offers the possibility of “sensing more complex and expanded representations of life, ones that surpass human exceptionalism. These are not simple images, nor are they immediately legible: they demand close attention, imagination, and, above all, a willingness to listen to the territory through other sensitive channels”.

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Miguel A. López is a writer and chief curator at the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City. Previously, he served as chief curator and co-director of TEOR/éTica in Costa Rica. His recent exhibitions include two major retrospectives of Cecilia Vicuña: Seehearing the Enlightened Failure at Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam, which traveled to Mexico City, Madrid, and Bogotá (2019–22); and Dreaming Water: A Retrospective of the Future (1964–…), presented at MNBA, Santiago; Malba, Buenos Aires; and Pinacoteca, São Paulo (2023–24). He is the editor and author of more than twenty publications on art, sexuality, social justice, cultural infrastructure, and political memory. In 2016, he received the Independent Vision Curatorial Award from ICI.