This MSCA (September 2019 to August 2021) was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the project being affected and re-organised. While fieldwork, in-person meetings and conferences, and university on-site life were cancelled, the project found ways to respond through online and safe in-person exhibitions, various forms of on-line research and presentations, and through collaboration in during the crisis. The project explored how Amazonian indigenous people and artists have responded to this pandemic leading to rich data for the exploration of the political-aesthetical dimension of Amazonian art.
This MSCA has been conducted via 6 work packages (WP). In WP 1, Training and Project Implementation, I received constant training -seminars, a digital analysis course, conversations and the training of a project in action- and implemented the project through fieldwork, exhibitions, a workshop and other events. This project has had a significant contribution to my career development as I have obtained a permanent position as a Lecturer in Latin American Studies in Newcastle University. WP 2, Ethnographic Fieldwork, was planned to complete my already rich data on Amazonian art with a total of four-month fieldwork. However, due to Covid-19 I could only undertook two months, and the completion of fieldwork will be achieved through an application for a small research grant. WP 3, Digital ethnography and platforms, became the main methodology for research through Email, Zoom, WhatsApp and Facebook and the principal platform of communication, collaboration and dissemination, with the development of a project website – www.amazonart-project.com- and on-line events.
In WP 4, exhibition planning, the project developed two exhibitions with a collaborative methodology: one focused on spatial politics and the other on Covid 19 responses. ‘Place-making, World-making: Three Amazonian indigenous artists’ became an on-line show hosted at Art Exchange (Jan-March, U. Essex, 2021) and travelled to La Parceria Cultural Centre in Madrid as an in-person show (July 2021). The other, ‘Ite, Neno, Here!: Responses to Covid 19’ (Crisis, Lima, 2020), was curated with indigenous artist Rember Yahuarcani and focused on Amazonian responses to the pandemic. Amazonart project supported three indigenous artists to obtain a small CAHR-University of York ‘Art and Activism’ grant. In WP 5, data analysis and theory development, I have written 2 book chapters: one, authored with R. Yahuarcani, on water conflicts and tensions between governmental project and indigenous management of rivers (Blackmore & Gomez, eds, Liquid Ecologies, Routledge 2020, open access); and the other that explores the battles in making an urban indigenous community in Lima (Barbec & Canessa, eds, Urban Indigeneities, Univ. of Arizona, 2022). I am concluding 2 academic articles: one, on the role of artists and shamans in the pandemic, and other on Indigenous cosmopolitanism with Prof. Andrew Canessa. After concluding the second part of fieldwork, I will integrate this research in a book about Amazonian indigenous art, activism and spatial politics. I have presented the work in 5 international conferences and co-organised 3 conference panels and 1 workshop. As part of WP 6, public engagement, I have disseminated results to a broader audience through different formats, such as the 2 exhibitions with public programmes and the production of three videos in Spanish with translation in English, exhibition catalogues in English and Spanish (one published, the other forthcoming), the Amazonart website, and 6 public, school and museum talks including an invitation from Peru’s Ministry of Culture.
