YPYKUERA

Ypykuera means ancestors in Tupi-Guarani. The project is a journey in search of the traces of civilizations that existed and still exist in this admirable territory, appropriated by the Portuguese and recently called Brazil.

Since 1981, when I took a backpacking trip through South America, going from Bolivia to Colombia through the Urubamba Valley, Titikaka Lake, Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu and many other places of the great civilizations that inhabited the continent before the arrival of "The Conquerors", that I started to question the story that was taught to me. I felt uncomfortable with the word discovery.

In 2016, when doing the XamaNY project and having the opportunity to live with the Carajás on the Bananal Island, in Tocantins, I realized how much the Eurocentric vision of History distorted the cultures that existed here before 1500. The navigators arrived, took over a huge territory and dictated the rules.

The discrepancy between the parties, on one hand firearms and a much more developed apparatus of war and on the other, arrows, and another way of life and respect to the others, were decisive factors for the seizure of power. They also brought a social organization that the local population did not know. 

How to explain that uninhabited territory has an owner for nomads or semi-nomads? Even to sedentary people, how to explain that a huge, distant, uninhabited territory has an owner? What is ownership?

Only under a lot of physical and mental pressure you can make someone who does not share your faith and does not understand your exchange system, should build a church for you. Even today, I imagine as someone who had never seen coins, understand the payment with those pieces without direct use. Worse, there was often no payment, just lashes or other tortures.

Now, we are in the twenties, almost 40 years after my trip across South America and the fact that I have lived abroad for so many years, always having Brazil as a reference and Portuguese as the language of my dreams, I felt the need to dive into the Brazilian entrails. I wanted to go after the vestiges that the first men who inhabited the lands today called Brazil left.

In February 2020, still in the initial research, the closure came due to the Covid-19 pandemic and I was forced to postpone the trips, which only happened in December 2020. I ended the trips in February 2021, exactly 1 year after the start of the project.

It is very important to mention that I made all the trips following the protocol that was instructed by the scientists, using masks whenever I was in contact with people outside the intimate circle, washing my hands frequently, passing alcohol gel whenever possible and avoiding running my hands over my eyes, nose and mouth.

I divided the Ypykuera project into three phases, the first started in early 2020, with my trip to the USP archeology museum in S?o Paulo, to find out which archaeological sites I should visit and which bibliography I should consult. This research period lasted until December, when I started the second phase of the project, the travels.

We photographed, recorded and went to Lagoa Santa, where the guide Erika was waiting to take us to Lapa do Caeiro, in Matozinhos.

We arrived at Caeiro's cave and found numerous drawings made in notched relief. It also had a small cave, whose formation with ores and limestone, created natural designs. In this place I made three watercolors. From Lagoa Santa went to Cocais and from there we went back to Rio de Janeiro. In total, we covered 1350 km.

Some days later, I flew from Rio de Janeiro to Recife and and took a car to Pedra do Ingá, in Paraíba, an archaeological site that is 140 km from Recife. It is interesting to note that Pedra do Ingá is a stone 50 meters long by 3 meters high, all carved and whose drawings, are from unknown origins. I painted a watercolor on the spot.

Afterwards, I rented a car to do the circuit, Recife, PE / Buique, PE / Petrolina, PE / Serra da Capivara, PI / Piranhas, AL / Recife, PE, looking for archaeological remains. The highlight of this 2600 km journey by car and 40 km on foot through the trails was Serra da Capivara, in Piauí. The number of drawings found in that region are impressive. Only one site has more than 800 drawings on the stone. Below is an excerpt from the diary:

"Stunning! There is no way to start a text about Serra da Capivara without an adjective. What a wonderful place! The archaeological sites are well signposted, some places with accessibility, and the people in charge of maintenance and support is super friendly. This is just to talk about. of the structure. The sites themselves, the cave paintings, are jaw-dropping. And the landscape is incredible. "

Altogether we tour 16 archaeological sites in a breathtaking view. In Serra da Capivara I made 6 watercolors.

Back in Recife, we rested for a few days and, due to the sanitary crisis, I decided to go alone to Acre with a stop in Brasilia to go by car to visit Terra Ronca, a municipality in Goiás with many caves and some archaeological sites. In Brasilia, I had the pleasant company of my nephews Sergio and Julia to go to Goiás.

It was a 6 hour drive from Brasilia to Terra Ronca. We visited the Caves of S?o Mateus, S?o Bernardo and Terra Ronca. In addition to the caves, we did a 3 KM walking trail to discover a rock with cave drawings that was inside the lands of Rogerio, our guide. On this stone, I painted a watercolor. 

Below is an excerpt from the diary:

"S?o Bernardo cave also had a challenging entrance, not as much as S?o Mateus, but it had a very difficult descent of about 80 meters. One of the characteristics of this cave is the fact that we have to walk almost all the time in the water. 

We went back to Brasilia and I took a plane to Rio Branco, in Acre.

I arrived at the airport in Rio Branco and the guide Cassiano was waiting for me with an off road truck due to the rough conditions of the places we headed to. We went straight to Fazenda do Tequinho to see the Geoglyphs - huge drawings made in the fields by our ancestors. The Geoglyphs are on private land and we needed permission from the owners to visit them. After the Tequinho Farm, we went to the lands of Jacó Sá. In this place, while I was painting one watercolor under a beautiful tree, Cassiano was filming with a drone, because the only way to get an accurate idea of the drawings is with an aerial view. From Acre I went to Rio de Janeiro to prepathe trip's last leg. 

In Rio de Janeiro, we visited the Sambaqui de Itaipu, in Niterói, where I drew a watercolor.

The final stage of the project was from Rio de Janeiro to Santa Catarina. We were 5 ,me, We passed S?o Paulo and Curitiba until we in Florianópolis, where we visited Cost?o do Santinho guided by the guide Ciro Couto, who introduced us to Adnir Ramos, an expert in archaeoastronomy. Adnir took us to megalithic monuments. On this trip I made seven watercolors.

In total, I traveled around 12,000 km by plane in Brazil, 7,500 km by car and walked about 100 km on the trails to reach the archaeological sites. I crossed Brazil from Pernambuco to Acre and from Piauí to Santa Catarina. I fulfilled an old dream. I saw geoglyphs, monoliths, sambaquis, caves and thousands of petroglyphs, in a stunning landscape.

Many societies lived in this territory long before the arrival of the Portuguese. Both groups, with arrivals before and after 1500, have the same origin.

I've visited the following places:

Lagoa Santa, MG. Serra do Cipó, MG. Serra da Lapinha, MG. Sucupira, MG. Concei??o do Mato Dentro, MG. Santana do Riacho, MG. Cocais, MG. Matozinhos, MG. Pedra do Ingá, PB. Buique, PE. Serra da Capivara, PI. Terra Ronca, GO. Rio Branco, AC.Itaipu, RJ.Florianópolis, SC. 

 Before starting the third stage of the project, the painting phase, I decided to divide what I saw into 5 groups, all these elements were carried out by men before the arrival of navigators and their culture. Archaeology still works with uncertainties and there are many disagreements regarding the dates on which man settled on this continent.

1 - Petroglyphs: drawings and carvings made in stones.

2 - Monoliths: large stones grouped together for some reason, religious or related to the sun.

3 - Sambaquis: mounds made by men with material remains.

4 - Geoglyphs: large scale designs on the earth.

5 - Forests: the current forests that have been planted. 

In addition to these five groups, as some current theories says that the presence of man in this region is more than 50 thousand years old, I considered the timeline from the Big Bang. Some canvases are references to that first moment.

I also used the project "500 years of European culture in Brazil" as a reference. A canvas 16 meters long by 1.60 meters wide, totaling 25.60 square meters of painting, made in 2000.

In the search for our origins, I find questions that have been with me for a long time.

Who am I? Who we are?

How we got here and where we are going. I like to sift through the past as a creative process. I observe the changes forged by man as well as the paths that nature takes.

Civilizations created, extinguished, recreated, recurring. Seas, natural and diverted rivers, dams, mountains; Natural, planted, replanted forests. Man, that tenacious animal that tries in every way to have the earth as its garden.

He is the lord and made the Lord a character of manipulation in the history of his fears and conquests.

Humanity is one and its trajectory comes from far away. We have documents about a very recent history, but if we observe and somehow decipher everything that was written on these stones by our ancestors, we will certainly change the way we think about our history.

Many people helped me in this project and I would like to thank Carla, Carolina and Luiza Tendler, for always being with me, friends Plinio Sim?es Barbosa and Marcos Lopes, who made this project happen and Paulo Antonio de Blasis, director of USP Archeology and Ethnology Museum, which guided me on the bibliography and the sites to be visited.

In addition to them, I cannot fail to mention the affection and help in some way from Sergio Correia, Julia Jungmann and Pedro Peracio, who accompanied me on some part of this trip.

I was also lucky to have great guides in some of the stages: Leandro Pacheco Vida in Concei??o do Mato Dentro, Erika Banyai in Lagoa Santa, Genivaldo in Buique, Alexandra Ribeiro in Serra da Capivara, Rogério and Osmar at Terra Ronca, Cassiano Marques in Rio Branco, Ciro Couto in Cost?o do Santinho and Adnir Ramos on the archeological trail in Florianópolis.

In the Serra da Capivara, I found this drawing below, made thousands of years ago. Any resemblance to the signature, which I have used on my canvases since the 80's, is purely accidental. 

All rights reserved. No written part or image of this project may be used without written authorization from the author.

Brussels, April, 2021.

Bibliography:

• A Queda do Ceu, Davi Kopenawa e Bruce Albert. 
• O Brasil antes dos brasileiros, André Prous.
• A terra dos mil povos, Kaká Werá Jecupé.
• Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo, Ailton Krenak. 
• Arqueologia Brasileira; a pré-história e os verdadeiros colonizadores, André Prous.