Kellen Stepler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Kellen by email at kstepler@triblive.com or via Twitter .

In 1939, and then again in 1964, Queens, New York played host to the World’s Fair, an international expo where countries came together to show off their achievements in technology and industry. This September, the borough will play host to a different event: The World’s UnFair. 

That’s the name of a new Creative Time-presented project by the collective New Red Order (NRO). With artworks, film screenings, and musical performances, the event will mimic the elaborate pageants of yore, albeit with a different agenda: to expose, in the group’s words, the United States as an “ongoing occupation of stolen Indigenous land.” 

Founded by artists Adam and Zack Khalil (who are both Ojibway, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) and Jackson Polys (Tlingit), New Red Order identifies itself as a “public secret society composed of networks of informants and accomplices dedicated to rechanneling desires for indigeneity towards the expansion of Indigenous futures.” That may be a mouthful, but the group’s central message is pointedly uncomplicated: “Give it back.”  

New Red Order. Courtesy of the artists.

For NRO, the phrase is a call to action: return all land to the peoples who were forcibly displaced from it by settler colonialists. Through its larger, ongoing research project—also called Give It Back—the group investigates and promotes real-life instances where this exchange has voluntarily taken place.  

“New Red Order’s whole work is about harnessing people’s desire for indigeneity—to co-opt it, to appropriate it, to assume it,” said Creative Time curator Diya Vij, who is organizing The World’s UnFair with the collective. NRO’s goal, she went on, is to “take that desire and turn it toward a pathway for [transforming] settlers into accomplices in the return of all indigenous land and life.” 

“They say ‘Give it back’ instead of ‘land back’ because it is something that we can all do. It is a giving and not a taking. It’s being in community together,” Vij added.

Among other attractions, The World’s UnFair will feature an installation of hundreds of tribal flags, signposts indicating the site’s proximity to present day locations of diasporic Lenape communities, and a large-scale video sculpture—titled Fort Freedumb—enwrapped in various forms of fencing. At the center of the fair will be Dexter and Sinister (2023), an animatronic talking tree and beaver that chat with each other about issues of land and the concept of private property. 

An illustrative map for New Red Order’s upcoming The World’s UnFair project. Courtesy of NRO and Creative Time.

That NRO would be interested in the World’s Fairs make sense. With its expos, the U.S. has a troubling history of exploiting indigenous and other minority communities to prop up its own imperialist ideologies. The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, for instance, barred people of color from participating in the event’s central “White City” section. The St. Louis iteration of 1904 put Filipinos and Native Americans on display to demonstrate “uncivilized” cultures. 

“In a time where the future appears bleak or non-existent, giving it back offers a bright path forward, a way for us to survive an apocalypse together,” NRO said in a joint statement. “The landmass here is enormous. And its ecological capacity to sustain life is immense if we care for these resources correctly. You can have a place. But first things first: Give it back.”   

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At the heart of the XXIII Paiz Art Biennial in Guatemala is the question of how language manifests physically in our bodies and upon the environment. Titled Bebí palabras sumergidas en sueños (I drank words immersed in dreams), the 23rd edition of the biennial, which bills itself as the largest contemporary art exhibition in Central America, brings together 30 artists and collectives who explore ideas of translation and interpretation—of dreams, territories, bodies and movement. Its title comes from a line in Nací mujer (I was born a woman), a poem by the Guatemalan writer Maya Cú.

The exhibition is a feminist and intersectional project, foregrounding the relationship between vulnerable and often-marginalised bodies and the earth. Many works link language, race and class through different periods of forced migration due to slavery, attacks against Indigenous communities and shifting territorial claims. Beyond artistic and theoretical examinations of these forms of violence, several works propose practical strategies for healing trauma caused by gender-based violence and ecological extraction.

The biennial is taking place in Guatemala City and Antigua, spanning five venues: the Centro Cultural de España, Centro Cultural Municipal Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, Portal de la Sexta, the Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española and La Nueva Fábrica. For its co-organisers, independent curators Francine Birbragher-Rozencwaig and Juan Canela, the exhibition is an opportunity to present a “polyphony of voices”, an approach exemplified by a collaboration with educator Esperanza de León to organise a cultural convening to consult on the exhibition. This cohort is composed entirely of artists—Minia Biabiany, Marilyn Boror Bor, Duen Neka’hen Sacchi and Juana Valdés—whose works are also featured in the exhibition. The work of Indigenous collectives, artists selected from an open call and five historical women artists—Margarita Azurdia, Ana Mendieta, Fina Miralles, María Thereza Negreiros and Cecilia Vicuña—are also included.

Those five historical revolutionary artists’ works from the 1960s and 70s opened up new channels for feminist thinking about bodies and ecologies, providing elements of a conceptual framework for the biennial as a whole. At a time when predominantly white, male Land artists were gaining notoriety for large-scale and permanent interventions into the landscape, these artists took a specifically feminine and personal approach. In the series of photographs L’arbre (1975), Miralles, a Spanish conceptual artist, submerges her body in the soil of her native Catalonia to poetically underline the connection between humans and the earth, both types of organic matter.

For the late Cuban American artist Mendieta, art was a way to “become one with the earth [to] become an extension of nature and nature becom[ing] an extension of [her] body”, as much as it was a means to re-establish a bond with Cuba, her birthplace. In her Silueta (Silhouette) (1970s) series of photographs and Corazón de Roca con Sangre (Rock heart with blood) (1975) video on view, Mendieta traces the outline of her silhouette upon the earth—in rocks, mud, water, blood and flowers, among other materials.

That communion between the human body and the earth, plus preoccupations with belonging and transformation, persist today in the work of Colectivo Ixqcrear, a Guatemalan collective created by Q’eqchi’ Maya women and composed of sisters Ixmukane and Ixmayab’ Quib Caal and their aunt Elena Caal Hub. In their video La fuerza que emancipa al cuerpo (The force that emancipates the body) (2022), a woman sleeps in clay, personifying pepem ixq (butterfly woman), the spirit of all subjugated women. Pepem ixq is awoken by the voices of emancipated women and subsequently arises, dresses and meets the women who supported her, an intergenerational group inspired by the collective members’ mother and grandmother, who survived gender-based and colonial violence.

In the text Mi abuela Juana (From my grandmother Juana) by indigenous Kaqchikel Maya artist Marilyn Boror Bor and writer Jimena Pons Ganddini, they similarly mark a generational sharing of knowledge, writing: “something in my grandmother’s gesture and in the way the fire respects her give me the impression that… she was forged from earth and fire; that’s why she carries maps on her skin because she is guide, memory and pure territory”.

The Panamanian artist Risseth Yangüez Singh explores the notion of intergenerational mapping in Panamáfrica (2023), a textile work made in collaboration with her grandmother that shows the map of Panama. Created from braided hair and shells, the work marks places with African names and their derivations in the territory. The work is presented with the video performance Hacerme un capullo (Make myself a cocoon) (2023), in which Singh, with the help of close friends, braids herself into a cocoon of hair as a communal and meditative act of care using a politicised, organic material. The curators note the musical quality of this gesture, explaining that Singh “question[s] her experience as a Black woman, drawing new lines, like sheet music in her hair”.

In the Guatemalan artist Carolina Alvarado’s installation Comen poemas mojados en leche, uno dos tres gatos (They eat poets soaked in milk, one two three cats) (2023), voices are made manifest. Working with women at Casa Refugiados, an organisation that supports refugees in Mexico City, she has constructed a white tree of branches with embroidered elements cascading down as roots. Inspired by a poem of the same name that is recited in Spanish, English, French and Quiché (the language of the Kʼicheʼ Maya), the work connects recent poetry with elements of the Mayan worldview present in the Popol Vuh, a foundational sacred text for the Kʼicheʼ people, to honour the memory of writers and poets assassinated during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-96). As much as Alvarado’s installation is about estrangement and the violence that can be done to a body by a state and society, it is guided by a belief in a universal connectivity, a “rhythm” that the curators identify as setting a pace for the entire exhibition.

At an opening press conference, Birbragher-Rozencwaig and Canela framed their biennial as an invitation for discussion and to party, a provocation that was supported by the inaugural ceremony organised by Colectivo Tz’aqol. Led by Victor Manuel Barillas and Marta Guadalupe Tuyuc Us, the collective facilitates theatre and healing workshops from the perspective of a Mayan worldview. Solik/Desatar (Solik/Tie off) (2022) is a monologue that chronicles a young girl’s daily life, rape and subsequent cycles of trauma. As a form of communal healing, attendees were invited to actively join the ceremony and throw candles into a fire, join hands, lean on the backs of fellow attendees and strangers, and finally dance. In this presentation—as in many other works in the XXIII Paiz Art Biennial, tactile and corporeal gestures operate as languages between and beyond words.

• XXIII Paiz Art Biennial, until 30 July, various venues, Guatemala City and Antigua, Guatemala. Presentations at Centro Cultural de España and the Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española in Guatemala City, and at La Nueva Fábrica in Antigua, will be open until 30 September

Earlier this month, the digital artwork project Winds of Yawanawá premiered at Scorpios Mykonos as part of a special program surrounding the launch of the new art platform Scorpios Encounters. Co-created by new media artist Refik Anadol and the Yawanawá, an indigenous people of Brazil, Winds of Yawanawá is the first iteration of Possible Futures, an initiative derived from the indigenous outreach program Genesis, commissioned by Impact One CEO Mikolaj Sekutowicz, and curated by Jeanne de Kroon as part of Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum.

Premier of Winds of Yawanawá (2023). Courtesy of Impact One.

Following an invitation from Yawanawá Chiefs Nixiwaka and Putanny, Therme Art and Impact One visited the Yawanawá Sacred Village of Aldeia Sagrada in the Brazillian state of Acre. The experience inspired the initiative—which has since grown to become an expansive platform amplifying indigenous voices—and the development of Possible Futures, comprised of a collection of ongoing initiatives and programs that offer new ways of platforming perspectives and courses of action for future-oriented, environmentally minded ways of living by leveraging new technology.

For the visit to the Yawanawá homeland, Impact One invited Anadol, whose experiences with media arts, public art, as well as data sculpture and painting, provided an unparalleled opportunity for collaboration. The resultant digital artwork Winds of Yawanawá reflects the tribe’s culture and the singular importance and influence of the surrounding native rainforest environment. Simultaneously, it highlights the value of new Web3 technologies—like blockchain and NFTs—in preserving and uplifting indigenous modes and models of environmental protection and sustainability. “At the peak of the digital age, this work reconnects to our natural heritage, sourcing its form and language from the Amazon rainforest, while sourcing funds for the Yawanawá and their stewardship of the rainforest, to give back. That makes this collaboration truly nature-positive in its entirety,” said Sekutowicz.

Winds of Yawanawá is comprised of a limited, 1,000-piece Genesis NFT collection, with each NFT featuring a unique video and sound compilation born from the central artwork of the series. Elements such as live weather data from the tribe’s location within the Amazon rainforest—including temperature as well as wind speed and direction—are interpreted through artistic means in Anadol’s work, highlighting the mutualism between tribe and environment.

Chief Nixiwaka Yawanawá and Refik Anadol. © Fotinos Bakrisioris for Scorpios.

Chief Nixiwaka Yawanawá said, “This partnership that we are building with Refik is directly for our communities. It strengthens our village, it strengthens our culture, it strengthens our spirituality, it gives us strength to defend, to protect our forest. And shows us that we are not alone. That we have allies around the world. This empowers us. This project can serve as a model and an example for many indigenous peoples and for big companies, big artists, big actors, big celebrities of the world.”

The necessity of a symbiotic approach to living within the natural world is particularly prevalent today, as environmental concerns reach all-time highs and with the rapid development of technology offering potential, mappable solutions. Anadol said of the use of new technologies in the realm of environmentalism and the project at hand, “We need collective wisdom. And if you think about collective wisdom, you will need ancestral wisdom. At some level, it’s more educational and inspiring—hearing the Yawanawá’s voices and how we are evolving and bringing their perspective to the dialogue is the most fundamental part of the project.”

Community members of Yawanawá. © Camilla Coutinho for Impact One.

The proceeds from the Winds of Yawanawá, which had its pre-sale sell out, go directly to Instituto Nixiwaka, which represents the Yawanawá communities of Aldeia Sagrada and Nova Esperança, and in turn supports key projects and initiatives geared toward protecting the tribe’s culture and territories—including building sustainable infrastructure, hosting conferences, and developing local school curriculums. And as it exists on the blockchain, the distribution of the proceeds is inherently transparent—a new model of community-focused Web3 smart contracts that have the potential to offer immeasurable aid and support to grassroots projects up to global-scale initiatives.

The Winds of Yawanawá marks an exciting early stage of Web3, art, and indigenous collaboration, which bears a hopeful and concrete aim of bettering the future for the earth and the ways in which humans live and move through the natural world.

Inquire about Winds of Yawanawa Data Painting NFTs here.

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