44th edition of ARCOmadrid

The ARCOmadrid contemporary art fair brings together the diversity of Amazonian art to engage with the world…

The spotlight of the art world has been on Madrid. Since the 5th, the Spanish capital has been hosting the 44th edition of ARCOmadrid, one of the most important international contemporary art fairs. In 2025, the event will feature around 200 galleries, 20 of which are Brazilian, and will highlight the Amazon. Walking through pavilions 7 and 9 of Ifema, the event center that hosts the fair, you will find the most diverse techniques and messages from artists.

Ana Beatriz Farias, RFI correspondent in Madrid
The project "Wametisé: ideas for an Amazonofuturism" is the central section of ARCOmadrid 2025. The curatorship, shared by Denilson Baniwa and María Wills, in collaboration with the Institute of Post-Natural Studies, invites the public to delve into the many possible Amazons. Baniwa emphasizes that the Amazon is much more than a geographic space that needs protection. "It is a space that needs to be listened to, it needs to be understood from its forest, from the people who live there," he points out
Manaus Amazônia is one of the galleries represented. Created in 2016, the Brazilian gallery began its activities in the local market, fostering the culture of collecting in the region. Now, it is making its international debut at ARCOmadrid, featuring works by Duigó, Dhiani Pa'saro and Paulo Desana. Through painting, marquetry and photography, the works on display highlight an Amazon that has often been left out of spaces like this, as Carlysson Sena, founder of the Manaus Amazônia Galeria, analyzes.

Sena notes that the Amazon region has long been excluded from the development processes of the art market. "We are also a cry of resistance within the Amazon. And now we are open to receive all people from the world," he emphasizes.

Amazonian art to engage in dialogue with the world

Another artist who promotes an opening of the Amazon to the world, based on new paradigms that allow the Amazonian people to speak for themselves, is the artist Uýra. She defends artistic expression as an alternative for transmitting messages that are commonly ignored by institutional politics.

"Art has been this possible path to engage in dialogue with the rest of the world. To present ourselves in a much more real, human - and also non-human - and less exotic and colonial way," she states. The artist argues that the "imaginary fixed in the world's mind" about the Amazonian reality is dangerous, because it limits the Amazon to a green, continuous forest, without cultures and without knowledge.
For Uýra, the protagonism of the Amazonian people in the process of re-presenting the Amazon to the world is essential. "There are more things said about the Amazon than those said by us. What we are doing is just saying for ourselves who we are and where we come from," she explains.
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