In an era marked by intensified civilizational crises and planetary destruction driven by colonial modernity and its continuities through extractive and racial capitalism, Amazonian Indigenous artists have played an important role in revitalizing life and transforming physically and epistemically damaged territories. This presentation by Professor Jamille Pinheiro Dias (Brown University) will provide a comparative analysis of two recent short films by Amazonian Indigenous artists from Brazil and Peru: "Children of the Corn" (2021-2022) by Denilson Baniwa and "Bakish Rao: Plant Resistance" (2024), produced by Denilson in collaboration with the Comando Matico collective from the Shipibo-Conibo people. Both films, in whose joint creation Pinheiro Dias participated, address concerns around monoculture. They offer warnings about this issue through the lens of Amerindian cosmological perspectives on the legacy of Anthropocene violence. These works emphasize the inseparability of physical, vegetal, and spiritual health, proposing multispecies resistance against the homogenization of life. This comparative exercise highlights the importance of creative coalitions among Indigenous artists from different peoples as a pedagogical and cosmopolitical tool in times of ecological and social crisis.

Please contact matteo.gilebbi@dartmouth.edu to request a link to the digital streaming of the films.