Indigenous History, Languages & Cultures Week 2023

Dina Ananco is an Awajun and Wampis poet from the Peruvian Amazon. She studied literature at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and completed a master’s in Peruvian and Latin American literature at the same institution. Ananco is a translator and interpreter with the National Register of Translators and Interpreters of Indigenous Languages (Ministry of Culture of Peru). Her short stories and poems have appeared in a variety of literary magazines. She has been invited to participate in literary conferences and events in Peru and other countries. In 2021, Ananco published the poetry book Sanchiu (CAAAP and Pakarina Editores).

Renzo Aroni is a Humanities Fellow in the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Colombia University.  A historian of modern Latin America, he was born in Lima and raised in the Peruvian highland region of Ayacucho. He received his Ph.D. in History with two Designated Emphases, Human Rights and Native American Studies, from the University of California, Davis, in 2020. He has an M.A. in Anthropology, with a focus on Ethnomusicology, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City. His research experience and current interest includes social movements, revolutions, indigenous peoples, and human rights in Latin America, particularly at their intersection with culture, memory, and political violence.

José Luis Castro García

Karina Guanca Aramayo Descendiente quechua, aymara y diaguita, perteneciente a Cuarta Generación de Canto Ancestral de tradición oral de Salta. Soprano argentina. Profesora Superior Nacional de Música y Canto Lírico (Conservatorio Nacional de Música), Licenciada en Artes Musicales orientación Canto Universidad Nacional de Arte, (U.N.A) Autora de la tesina “El Canto Andino con Caja y el Canto Lírico”, publicada por la U.N.A. Participó como cantante y disertante en Conciertos Didácticos, Jornadas, Foros y Congresos a nivel internacional. 

Es la representante académica del Departamento de Artes Musicales del Instituto Nacional del Arte (IUNA-Argentina) en pos de participar en convenios interinstitucionales artísticos a nivel internacional y recibió el “Reconocimiento a la labor artística” distinción otorgada por la institución de la Universidad Andina del Cusco (Cusco-Perú). Participó como exponente y cantante en el Encuentro de Espiritualidad Andina del Hatun Ayllu Qorikancha en Cusco, integrando también en el compilado de registro gráfico del mismo encuentro. En el 2018 participó exponiendo en el Congreso de Medicina Tradicional auspiciado por el Ministerio de Cultura de Cusco sobre “El Canto Ancestral Consciente como Armonizador de Estados Emocionales”.  Su propuesta musical de Soprano Andina fue ganadora de “ Festival Qosqo Takarinanpaq” y “ El sueño de Atahualpa” cómo propuesta artística multidisciplinaria. En 2020 ganó las becas para las Master Class de Juventus Lírica (Argentina) y realizó el taller de ópera y escena del Conservatorio Manuel de Falla. En 2021 su concierto de “ Soprano Ancestral” fue elegido para ser retransmitido por “Latin American Women”, plataforma de Los Angeles, USA para difusión de sopranos latinas. Actualmente cursa la Maestría en Musicología de la Universidad de Arte de Argentina.

Edson Kayapó is a member of the Mebengokré people in Brazil. Born in the state of Amapa-Amazonia, he is an indigenous and environmental activist and researcher. He received his doctoral degree in education from the University of São Paulo and a post-doctoral degree in literature from the Federal University of São Carlos – UFSCar. He is an accredited professor in the postgraduate program in Teaching and Ethnic-Racial Relations at the Federal University of Southern Bahia.

Ana Maria Machado is an indigenist, anthropologist and translator of the Yanomami language. She has been following indigenous issuues for 20 years and is a member of the Pro Yanomami Network. She began working with the Yanomami in 2007 through the Yanomami teacher training program developed by the Comissão Pró Yanomami (CCPY). She participated in the organization, supervision and production of 13 books written by Yanomami researchers. She is one of the authors of the book The Yanomami Languages in Brazil (2019) and has done several translations for films and for the press. She is very dedicated to supporting the Yanomami and maintains a strong relationship of friendship and commitment to the Yanomami and the causes that are important to them.

Claudia Mattos Avolese A native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Claudia Mattos Avolese obtained her PhD in art history from the Free University in Berlin, Germany, and was an associate fellow at the Courtauld Institute in London for a year. In 2003 she became a professor for the history of art at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), in Brazil, where she taught visual arts and art history until moving to the United States in 2019. Her principal areas of interest are visual culture in Brazil, indigenous art, material culture, global art history and theory. Her recent research focuses on indigenous arts in Brazil, the imaginary of the forest and ecology. She has published widely on global exchanges in the 19th century, including scientific expeditions by explorers to Brazil, and the creation and development of art academies in South America. At Tufts she has offered a course on the concept of Antropofagia in Brazil, examining it as decolonial strategy.

Sandra Nanayna was born in Yauaratê, Rio Papuri to the Tariano people, indigenous people of the Vaupés or Uaupés River in the Amazon region of Brazil and Colombia. She currently lives in the city of São Paulo. In 2003 she discovered theater and cinema, where she learned  Portuguese. She participated in the performances of the “Ocre” project by Anita Ekman in the National Park of Serra da Capivara, through the project “Wombs of the Atlantic Rainforest”, supported by the Goethe Institute (Ecos Fund). And Tupi Valongo – Kunhanguereko by Sandra Benites, Anita Ekman and Marcelo Noronha. At the moment she is featured in the play Amazonias – Ver a Mata que Te Vê – um Manifesto Poético.

Valentina Tong is a curator, architect and photographer. She is assistant curator of the exhibitions Claudia Andujar: In the Other’s Place (IMS, 2015) and The Yanomami Struggle (IMS, 2018). She coordinated the adaptation of the project A Luta Yanomami for its itinerancy in Europe (2020-22) and New York (2023). She was assistant curator of the Contemporary Photography department at Instituto Moreira Salles (2014-20), participating in the organization of several exhibitions, publications, public programs and projects commissioned to contemporary photographers. 

Ehuna Yaira is an artist, researcher and Yanomami leader. She lives in the Brazilian Amazon, in the community of Watorikɨ, located in the Yanomami Indigenous Land and speaks the Yanomami language. She makes drawings and paintings that portray the everyday life of the Yanomami women in her community, her artwork has already been exhibited by the Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain and is now in New York. As a researcher, Ehuana participated in works on medicinal plants, which resulted in the publication of the book Handbook of Traditional Yanomami Remedies (2015). She did research on changes in rituals related to the first menstruation, presented in the 2017 book Yɨpɨmuwi thëã oni (Written words about menstruation). In 2019 she participated as an actress in the film A Ultima Floresta. Ehuana has distinguished herself as a leader among the Yanomami and also as a spokesperson for her people.