Sheroanawë Hakihiiwë

Sheroanawë Hakihiiwë is a Yanomami artist from Pori Pori, a community located in the Alto Orinoco, in the Venezuelan Amazon. His work introduces diverse ways of knowing physical and intangible worlds from the point of view of Yanomami ontology that are marginalised by the dominant global intellectual apparatus. Moreover, he actively responds to established artistic movements, mainly abstract expressionism, in that he incorporates Yanomami forms into the repertoire of global contemporary art.

Shitikari – Starscape  2019

Print on cotton

2019,2016.1 SHITIKARISTARSCAPE

The sky is big and the stars are in order. At night, when there are clouds, only some stars can be seen through the open spaces left by the clouds. When there are no clouds, however, you can see all the stars. We do not have names for each and every one of the stars, we call all of them Shitikari. Sheroanawë Hakihiiwë

In this quote Sheroanawë refers to the cotton fabric he has used to create this artwork which, like the clouds, is ephemeral and diaphanous. The star constellations in this work are bounded by a series of squares emphasising Yanomami ancestral cosmological order.

In Yanomami cosmology, a giant cosmic snake covered in spots encapsulates the universe: its past, present, and future. These designs, though abstract and schematic, are maps of lived and spiritual worlds, as well as an evocative expression of the individual experience of looking at the night sky and, in this way, renews traditional Yanomami designs.

Huwe Moshi – Transformation Snake  2019

Acrylic paint on paper

This painting is part of a series inspired in the powers of transformation of the coral snake. According to Yanomami cosmovision, trained humans and some animals are capable of transforming and traveling through spiritual dimension. In this painting, the simple colours of the coral snake—black, red, and white—transmute into abstract forms, becoming geometrical shapes as well as diagonal, vertical and horizontal lines that represent the animal’s movements during the journey.

The lack of realism in the depiction of this figure evokes the dream states associated with transformation ceremonies during which one can exist outside of the ordinary limitations of space-time.

Publications related to women’s and maternal health with Wixárika communities by the author of this exhibition

 

Gamlin, Jennie B. (2013)
Shame as a barrier to health seeking among indigenous Huichol migrant labourers: An interpretive approach of the “violence continuum” and “authoritative knowledge”
Social Science and Medicine 97 75-81

Gamlin, Jennie B. (2023)
Wixárika Practices of Medical Syncretism: An Ontological Proposal for Health in the Anthropocene
Medical Anthropology Theory 10 (2) 1-26

Gamlin, Jennie B. (2020)
“You see, we women, we can’t talk, we can’t have an opinion…”. The coloniality of gender and childbirth practices in Indigenous Wixárika families
Social Science and Medicine 252, 112912

Jennie Gamlin and David Osrin (2020)
Preventable infant deaths, lone births and lack of registration in Mexican indigenous communities: health care services and the afterlife of colonialism
Ethnicity and Health 25 (7)

Jennie Gamlin and Seth Holmes (2018)
Preventable perinatal deaths in indigenous Wixárika communities: an ethnographic study of pregnancy, childbirth and structural violence BMC
Pregnancy and Childbirth 18 (Article number 243) 2018

Gamlin, Jennie B. and Sarah J Hawkes (2015)
Pregnancy and birth in an Indigenous Huichol community: from structural violence to structural policy responses
Culture, health and sexuality 17 (1)

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