Gustavo Caboco

In 2023, Gustavo Caboco developed the residency-project ‘Ateliê-Lavrado’ at the British Museum, in a collaboration with Wapichana historian and educator Roseane Cadete, SDCELAR and CLACS/University of London. The project was centred around documenting cotton weaving materials of the Wapishana collection, from the Amazonian border of Guyana-Brazil. The two acquired artworks were produced by Caboco in July 2023 in response to his engagement with the collection at the British Museum.

The Wapishana collection speaks to the British colonial presence and legacy in Amazonia, as the consolidation of borders of the British Guiana (1831-1966) separated Wapishana communities across English and Portuguese-speaking borderlines, leading to their displacement from ancestral territories and the waterways that once connected them. The residency-project further explored the impacts of the British textile market’s transformation during the second industrial revolution through archival research. The visit by Gustavo Caboco and Roseane Cadete Wapichana in 2023 was the first re-encounter of Wapishana descendants with this collection at the British Museum.

‘Gustavo Caboco’s work is at the forefront of a broader movement integrating contemporary Indigenous perspectives into the global art world. […] Caboco demonstrates how Indigenous art is no longer confined to ethnographic contexts but is central to contemporary dialogues around art, collecting and heritage.’

Dr Lisa Blackmore, Dr Sarah Demelo, Gisselle Giron
(ESCALA, University of Essex)

Parixara song to awaken the threads of Wapichana history at the British Museum (2023)
(Scroll over the image to discover all the details from the artwork)

Series: Terras Reclusas? (Enclosed lands?)
Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas
83.9 cm x 122.5 cm x 0.01 cm
2025,2009.1, © The Trustees of the British Museum

Entitled, Parixara para acordar os fios da história Wapichana no Museu Britânico, this painting on cotton canvas draws on the traditional Indigenous songs from Roraima known as ‘parixara’, and asks: ‘How did the cotton threads of our Wapichana stories end up here in the British Museum?’ The Wapichana objects from the collection depicted in the painting include a ball of cotton threads (Am1836,0901.47) collected by Schomburgk, which inaugurates the collection in 1836 and is directly linked to British colonial expansion and demarcation of the Guiana-Brazil border, dividing Indigenous families between different countries. In this case, the thread is not a metaphor: it is a division. Depicted are also a spindle (Am1936,0714.18.a) —an instrument used for making threads— a rattle (Am1936,0714.35) made from the castanha elétrica nut, and a Wapichana hammock (Am1995,14.9), some bearing the museum’s labels and others not, ultimately representing a reconnection between the maloca (as in the community) and the museum.

The painting represents the encounter with a hammock through which Gustavo and Roseane sing the parixara songs to awaken the threads of Wapichana history —portraying an experience lived by the researchers during the residency-project at the Pitt Rivers Museum’s storeroom. Inside the hammock, there is an Indigenous person carrying a jamaxim basket (used to transport crops from the field, Am1995,14.4), as well as an invitation to the voices of both the elders and the youth. At the centre lies a red cloth embroidered with the words Dukuzy Ku’uku (meaning “grandfather” and “grandmother” in the Wapichan language) in a gesture of reverence to the ancestors. This work is an invitation to experience other forms of repatriation —through art and education.

Gustavo Caboco and Roseane Cadete Wapichana at Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, with the Wapishana collection. Photo credits: Pitt Rivers Museum, 2023

Wapichana Flag (2023)

Series: Terras Reclusas? (Enclosed lands?)
Embroidery with Wapichana cotton thread from Canauani (Roraima) on red denim
52.5 cm x 70.5 cm x 0.01 cm
2025,2009.2, © The Trustees of the British Museum

Entitled Fronteira Wapichana, the second artwork is a textile piece embroidered with cotton threads from the Canauani Wapichana territory in Rorarima Brazil, in the fashion of a flag. As Caboco explains:

According to the Wapichana perspective, there are no borders within our territories for we are Indigenous peoples from the lavrado savana, the place where our worldviews are rooted. This work also invites us to reflect on other types of borders that have been imposed on us by colonial relations: language borders —between English, Portuguese, and Wapichan; mental health borders —thinking of the Indigenous youth in Brazil in crisis, with suicide rates increasing every year; and cultural borders —when we witness some of our traditional practices being eroded by an imposed culture of consumption.

Both artworks will feature in the next rotation of the Amazonia Case, incorporating Wapichana voices and bringing Indigenous storytelling to the fore. Beyond upgrading the documentation of the Museum’s Wapishana collection, Caboco’s artworks channel the potential of museum collections for weaving and strengthening ties between Indigenous communities that have been historically separated by Imperial borders, and for healing relationships between local communities and museums.

Case render design of the future Amazonia Case display at the Wellcome Trust Gallery at the British Museum.
Design: Daniel Greenfield-Campoverde, 2025.

According to specialists Dr Lisa Blackmore¹, Dra Sarah Demelo² and Giselle Giron³ from the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA):

The project-residency is an important case study in how Indigenous artists can guide new methodologies for museums; acquiring works that emerged from this process strengthen the capacity for ongoing discussions around this emerging methodological horizon and its longer-term impact on cultural institutions.

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¹ Dr Lisa Blackmore, Former Senior Lecturer (School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies) and Research Fellow (Essex Collection of Art from Latin America), University of Essex
² Dr Sarah Demelo, Curator (Essex Collection of Art from Latin America, University Art Collections, and Special Collections), University of Essex
³ Gisselle Giron, Assistant Curator (Essex Collection of Art from Latin America and University Art Collections), University of Essex