The way in which I have been assessing curatorial practice relating to the exhibitions of Indigenous art mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2 has, of necessity, been based on the traces of the exhibitions – press releases, catalogues and reflexive pieces penned by the different curators themselves – available either in print or, in the vast majority of cases, online, together with reviews in the press and a handful of very recent articles, theses and other texts by academics working in the field. While this is far from a fully satisfying way of judging the curatorship of such exhibitions – clearly actually attending the exhibitions in person would provide an important supplement to the sources of information used – it is an expedient proxy methodology that serves the purposes of contextualising the emergence of exhibitions of Indigenous contemporary art in present-day Brazil. In the interests of fairness, what I want to do in the first instance is present the ‘Arte Eletrônica Indígena’ exhibition basing my judgements, insofar as it is possible for me to do so, on a similar range of information. I have thus drawn on materials available on the AEI project website including the exhibition catalogue, as well as the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Thydêwá's website, individual artist's websites, and contextual information about the Indigenous communities and the host institution, the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia [Modern Art Museum of Bahia], as well as the first few academic reviews of the exhibition to be published, in order to produce a comparable ‘distant reading’. I start by presenting some of the basic data concerning Thydêwá, the project, the exhibition and the host institution, before moving on to a more critical analysis, specifically focusing on the way in which the exhibition catalogue presents the project and exhibition.

THYDÊWÁ, AEI AND THE MAM

Thydêwá is a small Bahia-based NGO led by a core team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners: director Sebastián Gerlic (originally from Argentina), co-director Ivana Cardoso de Jesus (Potyra Tê Tupinambá), and associates José Nunes de Oliveira (Nhenety Kariri-Xocó), Maria José Muniz de Andrade Ribeiro (Mayá Pataxó-Hãhãhãe) and Fernando Monteiro dos Santos (Atiã Pankararu). As the exhibition catalogue explains, it was founded in 2002 by a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the Brazilian Northeast who sought to work in ‘alchemical’ collaboration, running ‘programmes, projects, actions and campaigns to raise awareness of discrimination against indigenous people and promote a culture of peace’.