Tears from the Sky, Tears from the Sewage
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('MMM') }}
{{ time.start_TS | TS2dateFormat('YYYY') }}
| free admission |
| German, Brazilian Portuguese |
| Duration: 60 min |
| 12 years and older |
| Mechanical Arena in the Foyer |
| Part of: Guestroom |
In the guest room, Xadalu Tupã Jekupé will discuss with Andrea Scholz about the Ybiracy River, reflecting on the tension between Indigenous cosmotechnologies (experiencing the world, managing resources, and caring for the world) and Western systems of property and heritage.
The Ybiracy once flowed through the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre; people used its water and the paths that ran along its banks in many ways. As the city grew, the river was increasingly displaced by urban development and was eventually buried underground during the construction of a shopping centre. Whilst the water body was thus condemned to invisibility, the city council erected a statue depicting a female form and bearing the name Ybiracy. The transformation of a living entity into cultural heritage is part of capitalist appropriation practices in Western society.
Yet Ybiracy cannot be erased. When the heavens weep and it rains, the underground river overflows its concrete channel, and the violence of appropriation comes to light in the form of sewage overflow.
Participants
Xadalu Tupã Jekupé is a Guarani Indigenous artist, born in Alegrete (RS) in southern Brazil, a territory historically inhabited by the Guarani Mbyá, Charrua, Minuano, Jaro, and Mbone peoples. His trajectory is deeply connected to the legacies and tensions left by the Jesuit Missionary system in South America, especially within the context of the Yapeyú estancia during the period of the Jesuit Missions. His research focuses on the Guarani Missionary Baroque, reinterpreted in a contemporary key as a living form of Indigenous art. At the same time, his work confronts the processes of erasure – resulting from catechization, wars, and colonial rebellions – transforming them into visual narratives that articulate memory, spirituality, and resistance. In doing so, his practice emerges as a symbolic field of contestation, where myth and ritual engage with the contemporary to challenge the limits of coloniality.
Among his recent solo exhibitions are: “O Jardim Guarani” (Centro Cultural São Paulo, 2022); “Antes que se apague: territórios flutuantes” (Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, 2022); “Invasão Colonial Yvy Opata: A terra vai acabar” (Museu das Culturas Indígenas, São Paulo, 2022); “Tekoa Xy: A Terra de Tupã” (Instituto Inclusartiz, Rio de Janeiro, 2022); and “Portal Sul: Tucum” (Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle, France, 2021).
He has received distinctions such as the Humanities Award (2014), in recognition of his defense of Indigenous and socio-cultural causes; the Açorianos Visual Arts Award (2019), in the Emerging Artist category; as well as nominations for the PIPA Prize (2022 and 2024).
During his residency at the Collaborative Museum/Humboldt Forum in June 2026, Xadalu Tupã Jekupé is preparing a series of images for the exhibition “Tributaries. Cosmotechnologies of Water”. It will open in November 2026, marking the start of the two-year programme focus “Mine.Yours.Ours?!” on property and heritage at the Humboldt Forum.
Andrea Scholz is curator for transcultural collaboration in the Ethnologisches Museum and Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Berlin. She is a trained anthropologist with a focus on Amazonia and has been working in various collaborative projects with Indigenous communities and educational projects, mainly in Latin America.
Xadalu Tupã Jekupé is a CoMuse Fellow at the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst in June 2026.
CoMuse – The Collaborative Museum is an initiative by the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst that aims to develop multi-perspective approaches to collection-based research and to test new formats of international collaborative processes in order to intensify the decolonisation and diversification of museum practices in sustainable ways.
The CoMuse fellowship programme is supported by Künstlerhaus Bethanien, which provides a studio for artistic and scientific research.
