Text in the catalog of the Curator

INDIGENOUS VOICES
Alfons Hug

The indigenous population of Latin America totals approx. 28 million people, i.e. 6% of the total population. Amerindian languages are used in all 20 countries with the exception of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There are 600 altogether, 10% of the idioms existing in the world. About a third of them are threatened with extinction, and another third are in a critical situation. The languages Quechua (Peru, Ecuador, Plurinational State of Bolivia), Guarani (Paraguay), Aymara (Plurinational State of Bolivia, Chile, Peru) and Nahuatl (Mexico) each have several million speakers; in the case of Arara (Brazil), Boruga (Costa Rica), Pipil (Honduras) and Chorote (Argentina) there are fewer than a thousand speakers. More than 160 languages are spoken in Brazil, compared to only a handful in some Central American countries. 85% of the languages that originally existed in the year 1500 are already extinct.
Only one woman, Cristina Calderón, who was born around 1938 in Puerto Williams (Chile), still speaks the Yámana language in Tierra del Fuego. An artist interviewed the old woman in order to preserve at least a basic vocabulary of her language. With each language that dies out, not only a valuable linguistic heritage disappears, but also a genuine view of the world and the environment.

Given this dramatic situation, it is a hopeful sign that a new indigenism can be observed in most countries of the continent, and traditional ways of life are being seriously discussed. This applies not only to the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ecuador and Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, but also to Brazil and even Argentina. Brazil has created several hundred reserves known as ‘terras indígenas’. In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the ‘rights of nature’ have been incorporated into the country’s constitution as an expression of ‘sumak kawsay’, which means ‘buen vivir’, good life, or ‘pure and harmonious life’ in the Quechua language. The issue here is a way of life that enables a harmonious coexistence both among human beings and between man and nature.

It is worth noting that contemporary art has increasingly been turning toward the historical heritage in recent years. It seems that contemporaries no longer feel capable of solving the pressing problems of the present on their own. It’s almost as though there were a secret agreement with the old masters, an echo whose power runs through the centuries. This would give us loyal companion for our journey, and we would not be solely dependent on our thinking. At the same time, art is increasingly incorporating scientific methods of collecting, archiving and classifying.

On his great journey to the ‘equinoctial regions of the New Continent,’ which led him to Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Cuba and Mexico between 1799-1804, the scientist Alexander von Humboldt purchased a parrot in the jungles of the Orinoco from Carib Indians who had attacked and exterminated a neighboring tribe and taken the bird as a prize. Humboldt noticed that the parrot did not speak the language of the tribe he had visited, but that of an extinct ethnic group called Maypure. In fact, the bird was the only surviving speaker of that language. The explorer noted a few words in his diary using phonetic writing: yuvi = time, sonirri = good, beautiful, vasuri = devil, nunaunari = friend.
Humboldt himself attached great importance to an ‘esthetic treatment of objects of natural history’ and emphasized the unity of art and science. He repeatedly used the term ‘natural painting’, with which he predefined an iconographic approach on which today’s artists can build.

Sound installation
The sound installation consists of several indigenous Latin American languages. We selected artists who have an affinity for the indigenous linguistic heritage. The main factors in the choice of languages are not only the historical and cultural importance of the language and ethnic group, but also how close to the brink of extinction they are, and how much esthetic appeal they have. The artists will also determine the subject and the type of texts used (e.g. fiction, fable, prayer, scientific work).

On entering the room, visitors will first hear a vague, polyphonic murmuring of all the voices together, a tapestry of sound reminiscent of a sacred space; they will then approach the individual loudspeakers though which every single language will be clearly audible.
The radical reduction of the installation to sound only demands intense concentration on the part of the visitors; the more the listeners are willing to immerse themselves in the cosmos of rare languages, the more visual elements can be can dispensed with.

It is also noteworthy that all the artists are participating in a collective work that knows neither hegemony nor rank.