Claudia Andujar (Vermelho, Stand G10)

Presenting at Frieze London as part of Indra's Net curated by Sandhini Poddar

The Yanomami refer to the Amazonian rainforest as urihi or “forest-land”, a vast living entity that encompasses the spirits of the forest and its natural environment. Arriving in the Catrimani River basin in the state of Roraima in deep, north-western Brazil in 1971, Swiss-born photographer Claudia Andujar has over the past five decades dedicated her life and practice to the Yanomami Indigenous peoples.

“I can state that I feel at ease in this Yanomami world”, she affirms. In several bodies of work focused on specific sociological, aesthetic and metaphysical realms of the Yanomami, we notice Andujar’s intimate relationships with shamanic leaders, young initiates and family households, as well as her peregrinations into the forest. We discover the circular community house or yano, Yanomami dreams and ritualistic hallucinations, and reahu ceremonies. We learn of epidemics and deaths, introduced through incessant gold prospecting, highway developments and colonization projects.

About Indra's Net

Derived from ancient Buddhist and Hindu thought forms, Indra’s Net refers to an ethics of being, where an individual atom holds within it the structure of reality. Imagine a vast bejewelled net: at every nexus there is

a reflective orb that mirrors and refracts every other orb in its entirety. Each part is held within the whole in a system of dependent origination. All sentient life is interconnected; shifts to one atom subtly alter the rest.

Curated by Sandhini Poddar, this group presentation brings together leading international artists whose practices are informed by this prescient metaphor. In various media, we learn of ancestry, history, language, consciousness and futurity as being bound to the earth, which serves as a perennial witness through the arc of time. 

Find Out More about Indra's Net