Auá Mendes, indigenous artist from Amazonas

Auá Mendes, indigenous artist from Amazonas, emerges on the contemporary art scene in Brazil

“It is an art about connection, demarcation, respect and protection. It’s so that I never forget everything that was done for me to be alive, yesterday, today and forever.” This is the inspiration for the new work by Auá Mendes, 24, an indigenous artist, graffiti artist and designer from the Mura people of Amazonas, who signs his first individual facade in the city of Belém, in Pará.

In a building that overlooks the commercial region, better known as Ver-o-Peso, the painting called IXÉ MAKU brings to light the worldview of its people through the color blue, which symbolizes the connection with dreams and portrays animals as enchanted beings, just as their ancestors believe. The work was produced as part of the Amazon Biennial program, which runs until November 5th with the theme “Bubuia: Waters as a Source of Imaginations and Desires”.

Passionate about graffiti, to create this and other works, Auá defies gravity by climbing buildings over 30 meters high to display her artistic expression on the walls of the cities she passes through. Suspended on scaffolding, she uses paint and techniques to print her way of seeing the world: a vision that came from her ancestors, was silenced by colonization and now, Auá exhibits it on giant platforms, almost like a scream. “Believing in the ancestral path that was built before me, IXÉ MAKU is a portal that talks about rooting the body to aim like a well-aimed arrow at the sky”, says the artist.

Born and raised in peripheral neighborhoods of Manaus, in addition to cotton, cassava, jambu and açaí plantations, Auá grew up surrounded by predominantly black and indigenous people. His first contact with art and activism was with his mother, who, in addition to singing, was involved in improving the neighborhood where they lived. “My mother is a great inspiration. She resolved the neighborhood’s issues, spoke to deputies, the guardianship council, whoever,” she says.

The Mura identity, however, comes from the paternal side of the family. Auá's great-grandfather was born in the territory, in Autazes, and told his father and grandfather several stories. Since the 17th century, described as a navigational people, with wide mobility and knowledge of the paths through the waters, the Mura occupy areas of the water complex of the Madeira, Amazon and Perus rivers.

Autazes, where Auá's family comes from, is a region marked by intense conflicts with cattle ranchers, who oppose the demarcation of lands, which have not yet been officially demarcated. In the 18th century, the Mura were the focus of territorial disputes over cocoa exploration projects in the Amazon. Today, the conflict with agribusiness continues. Due to these land conflicts, over the years, they suffered massacres and demographic, linguistic and cultural losses.

According to Funai, the population of Mura indigenous people is close to 9,300, however, this number only considers people living in demarcated indigenous lands, which excludes indigenous people who live in undemarcated territories and inhabitants of urban centers.

Representation in the artistic scene
Graduated in Graphic Design Technology from Faculdade Metropolitana de Manaus, it was at college, at the encouragement of an Art History professor, that Auá immersed herself in the day-to-day life of art. With the impulse to create, she entered the Manauara graffiti and pixo scene, but felt obstacles in gaining opportunities.

“Although the North is the territory where the majority of Brazil's indigenous peoples are concentrated, in Manaus there was the problem that there was a lot of art that represented indigenous people, but made by white people. I asked myself: where are the relatives here?”, she says.

As a trans woman, Auá knows that the scene is even more difficult for LGBTQIA+ artists. To find this space, she founded Aqui Crew, a collective for LGBTQIA + graffiti artists and also participated in TunipiQueen, which, in addition to the perspective of gender identity, questioned the lack of indigenous representation in territories where, numerically, they were the most present.

“We were a family. We came together first from the perspective of survival because we needed each other, and then, for artistic strengthening. It was these and other people who made me not give up because it wasn't every day that I had money to eat, for transport or for rent. These people encouraged me to continue believing in my work,” she says.