MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin)

Painting, the main artistic production of Mahku, was born in 2012 out of the need to revive collective knowledge on the verge of disappearing, and consists of translating Huni meka songs that guide ayahuasca rituals and certain myths into images. Guided by Ibã Huni Kuin, the artists transform and create bridges with the non-Indigenous through murals, drawings and installations while building alliances and strategies of autonomy.

Currently, the works of the collective are part of the collection of the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP) Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and Fondation Cartier, in Paris. Among the exhibitions in which they participated, there is Histoires de Voir (Fondation Cartier), Les Vivants (Fondation Cartier/Lille 3000), Mestizo Stories (Tomie Ohtake Institute), 35th Panorama of Brazilian Art: Brazil by Multiplication (MAM-SP), Avenida Paulista (MASP), Vaivém (Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil), Vexoá: we know (Pinacoteca) and Moquém_Surarî: contemporary indigenous art (MAM-SP). With a participatory and collaborative approach, MAHKU disseminates the millennia-old knowledge of the Huni Kuin and draws attention to an ongoing history of oppression, exclusion and displacement of the indigenous people.