Alicerce IV (Foundation IV), 2021

by Andrey Guainá Zignnatto

Ceramic and concrete, 65 x 120 x 20 cm

Courtesy of the artist

Andrey Guaianá Zignnatto is a descendant of the Brazilian Indigenous Tupinaky’ia and Guarani peoples. He worked as a bricklayer with his grandfather between 10 and 14 years old. These affective and ancestral memories are the foundation for the conceptual development and the methods used in his artistic production.

Zignnatto has shown artworks in more than 50 solo and group shows in galleries and museums in Brazil, USA, Columbia, UK, Italy, Peru and the United Arab Emirates. Selected exhibition include: ‘Territórios Forjados’ Paço das Artes SP [2015]; ‘Arte e Patrimônio’ Paço Imperial RJ [2015]; ‘Deslocamentos’ Blau Projects art gallery [2015]; ‘Estudos Para Novas Propostas de Interpretação do Espaço Físico’ National Art Foundation FUNARTE SP [2015], ‘Territórios Forjados’ Sharjah Art Museum, United Arab Emirates [2016]. He has works in the collections of important public and private institutions such as Perez Art Museum Miami, Rio de Janeiro Art Museum, Paço Imperial, among others.

“I am an artist and a descendant, on my father’s side, of the Tupinaky’ia Guaianá people, an indigenous ethnic group whose ancestral universe has been completely wiped out and who inhabited the territories currently known as São Paulo. On my mother’s side, I am a descendant of the Guarani Mby’a people, who have been helping me on a personal journey of reclaiming my identity as a Native Brazilian aba [man]. Based on these few memories that I have left as a legacy, in art and its many potentialities, I have been striving to develop a process of reforestation of my family’s ancestral universe, an effort that begins in the territory of my own thoughts and spirit. The reconstruction of this Tekoa* takes shape in each work produced during these research efforts and can be expanded to many dimensions during each exhibition, within the scope of the contact between the audience and each work.

Art is the method I have found to equalise certain forces from very distinct universes: the affective memories of my urban life, with my experiences as a mason who participated in the construction of cities, and my ancestral indigenous memories.” – Andrey Guianá Zignnatto

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