HAMMOCK TALKS <i>KOKORO</i> | HEART AILTON KRENAK AND HIROMI NAGAKURA IN TOMIE OHTAKE'S ATELIER WITH MARLUI MIRANDA When we travelled together, every time before entering the forest, you would approach the Silk-cotton tree and pray, almost like you were asking for permission. Here in the city of São Paulo, and even in Minas Gerais, there are no Silk-cotton trees. Who do you pray to in this case?
Every place has a certain, let's say, key. Every place. The forest, the sea, the desert.
. . Every place has a key, and we need to learn how to move that key.
Today we were in the car together and we saw the Pinheiros River beside us. There was a cycle path there, where people were running or cycling, sweating under the sun, pedalling and saying "health, health". But the river beside them was very dirty.
And you, Ailton, were saying that the river is no longer alive, it's polluted with factory waste. A huge contrast, typical of today's world. What is your opinion?
The difference between being in the world, within the forest, and being in the world in a metropolis is so radical that we could think of opposite ways of life. You once said that you'd like to bring politicians, businessmen, building contractors, people who produce things, to the forest. It was that moment when we were in the forest, lying on the hammock, swinging, and from inside the forest, we could hear the sound of dripping water.
. . Bird singing, bush animals, lots of sounds.
You were telling me that if you could bring these politicians to listen to these sounds that come from the forest, they would be able to understand the size of the senselessness of tampering with and destroying the planet as they please. You were telling me that the politicians and people on top could come here and feel it by lying in the hammock. Do you remember that?
I remember and I think it was a time when I still believed that poetry was capable of changing the nature of these scorpions, and now I don't believe much that the sound of birds or the beauty of the forest can transform these rough people who have already chosen a path of imposing themselves on life on the planet. It's an imposition. They don't change and it's not for lack of opportunity.
They don't change because they don't want another way of life. Nagakura-san has visited other continents, right? And you probably observed that even where people could have learnt from the forest, from the birds, from non-humans, from other beings, they insist on the wrong choice.
War, violence, separation, borders. These borders, they're being updated at every moment. I wanted to talk to you about borders.
Yes, I agree. Over the last 40 years, I've visited many countries and I notice that the distance between the worlds has become smaller and everything comes in handy. But at the same time, people's souls are more impoverished.
Over the years, we've seen the conflict between people increase a lot. We journalists and photographers have realised that people are suffering more and more and we find it difficult to take pictures. People are suspicious, sometimes even aggressive.
That's what I've noticed. This observation of the photograph and the person's body is an invitation for us to think of the body as the first border. The body is the first border.
This border is constantly updated. I also notice that the reaction of this body to other approaches is becoming increasingly critical. Nobody can go around with a camera photographing anymore, because everyone is now defending themselves.
They defend themselves in an almost reactive way. Imagine. .
. You're out in the street and you take someone's photo: you're going to be told off. The border has been radicalised.
Now the border is the body. It's a serious warning. In the last forty years, then, this has become such a fulminating movement that it invites us to think about the other layers of separation.
The body, the home, the village, the city. This time, thanks to you Ailton, Eliza, Ângela, Mr Ohtake, and all the team collaborating for this event and photo exhibition, what impressed me was the politeness and respect shown by representatives of the Krikati, Ashaninka and other indigenous nations. They were all very respectful to each other.
Even though they have differences, they remain polite and respectful. I was very impressed by the importance they attach to respect. And another thing that impressed me were the Ashaninka representatives.
I asked them if they still lived in those houses where there were no walls: "Do your houses still have no walls? " "Yes, we have no walls". In this current age where everyone is building lots of walls.
They stay in smaller and enclosed spaces, without looking outside, remaining inside themselves, but the Ashaninka people, after more than 20 years, continue in houses without walls where you can see everything outside. I was very impressed. This care for the limits of one's own body in space, which manages to produce a dwelling without walls, is a declaration that establishes a way of being in the world.
If you live in a concrete box, you're already making a statement about your way of being in the world and what you want to hide from the world. A dwelling that needs no division, no walls, no borders, is open to a kind of delight in life where everything can circulate, where everything can happen and move, because there is no prohibition. There is nothing to hide.
Western civilisation, white people, make boxes of various sizes, and inside these boxes, there are other, smaller ones. They have safes where they hide jewellery and documents—material treasures. They put their hearts into those things.
That's why they need to hide everything. They hide their bodies too. They don't have the courage to be nude.
They hide their bodies and they hide the things they value. It's like an insecurity, a desperation that makes them hide everything. We don't need to hide anything.
These dwellings without walls are a loving disposition towards life. I wonder if I got it. But it's okay.
The transposition of this experience from the body to the home, and then to the village and the world, also institutes borders between peoples, between countries. And these borders between countries, the world that John Lennon imagined, without borders, without religion, without war, these borders are instituted by men. Men don't want a world without borders, without wars, without religion.
They love this. . .
this cult of the commodity, as Kopenawa Yanomami says. It's the cult of the commodity, which is based on these ideas of religion, borders, and war. It's the ingredient of this boorish civilization.
When I take a photo, I try to remove the barriers of differences in culture, nationality, get close to people's hearts and only then I take the photo. It's not in the spirit, but in people's hearts. When the wall of the heart is closed, you can't get in.
But when it opens and you can get inside, you can understand a little more about what the person thinks. We live in a time in which people meet much less often, because everything is solved by a computer, mobile phone, paid by credit card. Everything has become more in handy.
But there's less and less chance of people meeting up. But those who live in the forest often don't have access to the internet. And when they meet in person, they look into each other's eyes, and then what is basic in communication happens.
This is why indigenous peoples continue to live in the here and now. Although the indigenous population is small in numbers, and threatened by the power of the invaders' weapons and machines, they still survive, continue to look ahead and maintain respect for each other. Perhaps therein lies the power of original peoples: keeping the doors open to the future.
That's what I think. I think this word <i>"kokoro"</i> so beautiful. <i>Kokoro,</i> heart.
The heart could be thought of as the key to all the transformations we want in the world, but my dear friend, Antonio Nobre, who is a climate scientist, says that it's been a long time since we separated the head from the body. And our body is an apparatus that carries a head, which doesn't connect with the heart. He suggests that we put the head at the level of the heart.
The head is too dominant, it has silenced the heart. The small human communities that still maintain this connection between heart and head will continue to be the people capable of having a radical experience of life. The others will survive.
In the last 40 years, I've realised that wars, disasters and events are happening much more than before. I think this is because humans think they are leaders, they think they are the privileged ones, the dominators. Since they think like that, they cause a lot of problems.
You mentioned that there is an immense variety of life in the forest, and that the indigenous people respect each of these lives, not just the lives of humans, of the people around them, but they see life in everything, even in a shoe, in a simple machine. As they are produced with the energy of the heart, of the soul, of thought, the products also receive life. This way of thinking from the original people, this way of considering life is perhaps what is lacking on the planet.
I also think that life is a concession from the planet. This thought reminds me of what you said back then, that we descend silently like the birds, and like them, we leave, silently. In other words, we leave it clean for the next ones to come.
That's what you, Ailton, taught me. Do you still think like you did before? When we look at the supply of technology, all these gadgets that dispense with our experience of common life, you mentioned that people can buy, they can communicate, they can do everything from a distance, nobody needs to be close.
This means that we have perhaps reached the limit of this border that begins with the body, with the sensitivity of a living organism on Earth, where everything is alive, everything breathes, everything has a spirit, a soul, and now we inhabit a world without a spirit, where we can abstract the experience of life so much that someone can live alone. They get their supplies from electronic devices and gadgets. This exaggeration, this radicality of the experience of running away from oneself, of escaping from oneself, is what is happening widely.
Some small constellations of people living in Polynesia, on small islands, archipelagos, in the mountains, in the forests, do maintain a way of treading softly on the earth, of landing like a bird, and of teaching their children this gentleness. When we walked through the forest with you, Ailton, to cross a shallow river you would tap your foot hard, making a noise and splashing water everywhere. Then you continued walking and hit the river hard again.
And when you met someone on the way, you said: "Hello, how are you? ", "Yes, I'm fine". And you'd hug each other.
I could see how people liked people. Although they usually live isolated, and have little contact with people, they enjoy meeting people, When they see each other, they hug. "Come up, come into my house".
And they offer plenty of food, the best dishes. On the other hand, in the cities, where there are lots of people, they don't look at each other, they look away. On the subway, they only look at their cell phones, they don't look at each other.
The more people have, the more lost they are. Because they have been isolated from meeting people for many years, they miss each other, they hug, they talk. That's what I felt and thought on these journeys.
This observation about joy, and contentment of people who. . .
are in the world in a more dispersed way, different from this urban agglomeration, should have been observed a long time ago, to avoid this urban dystopia that the world is experiencing. 70% of the planet today lives in cities, metropolises, the other 30% are distributed in other places in the world, which are the target and object of this "metropolitan fury" that builds things like Dubai, which I think is an aberration. Cramming people into these metropolises is producing this dystopia and there's little use in acknowledging this sad reality if we can't change the fate of the metropolis.
If the metropolis doesn't have a <i>becoming-forest,</i> it has no future. When we see these people who still celebrate common living, it's not just because they haven't seen each other for a long time, it's because they cultivate a heart. .
. They cultivate a heart like someone cultivates a garden. Putting your head below your heart can help.
You know, Ailton, over the last 40 years, travelling around various countries, I find it increasingly difficult to take photos of people. At the same time, the radiance of people's lives seems to be getting less and less bright. So the light of people, as you told me before: "Each person has their own light that illuminates.
" But when they have hatred, envy, or act violently, these lights become weaker and weaker. And the beings up there don't direct these people in a good direction. I remember that story quite well.
Nowadays there are many wars, a lot of exploitation of forests and mountains for profit. The light of these people is getting dimmer and dimmer. And this poverty of light can be seen in their faces, in their attitudes.
And that's why they don't reach heaven, I don't know if they're going to hell, but somehow they are punished. By trying to meet people who have this light, by travelling in search of these enlightened people, perhaps we can improve. .
. Ailton, don't fall asleep yet! Children keep the same vibration anywhere in the world.
Children, amid rubble and bombings, with all the stupidity of the human species, continue to arrive on Earth like softly landing birds. Children are like that. There was a guy who lived in the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, Rudolf Steiner, who said that every child, in every place and culture, when they land on Earth they are angels.
From the age of zero to seven, they are not yet human speciesists. They will only become human speciesists later, in the second septennium onwards. They say that when individuals reach the age of 12 or 15, they close off this aura at the top of their head and no longer have a connection with heaven.
What they've learnt will guide their life. So we're birds when we land on Earth and we become human speciesists afterward. These people of light are hidden in many places on the planet because they are light.
There's the story of the person who went into the forest to look for mushrooms, and he went in with a searchlight looking for mushrooms at night, until someone said to him, "If you don't switch off that lantern you won't see the light of the forest". Now people are paying a lot of attention to mushrooms. Some people have been learning from mushrooms forever, learning from mushrooms, searching them for wisdom, medicine, and the cure for this human illness.
Mushrooms are perceived as beings of light and wisdom. Human speciesism is the problem, because humans think they are the only intelligent thing on the planet. So they ignore all other "enlightenment", they want to carry a searchlight in their hand, looking for fireflies in the forest.
To find mushrooms in the forest, you have to switch off the lantern. This mushroom story is very good. When we were together in the Yanomami land, they were all covered in body paint, different from each other.
I saw that and found it very beautiful. But I couldn't understand it. And you, Ailton, told me that the drawings were like a calling card, they communicate when they are sad, when someone was born or died.
So there are many meanings. "Oh, I see". We introduce ourselves with our name, business card, documents.
. . or via the internet.
But just by looking at the body they know what the person is going through at the moment. I found that very interesting. Another story, going back to the one we mentioned, was when I was in South Africa and was able to talk to Mandela.
I went for a small report, to photograph and interview him, and he told me: "People learn to hate, but they can also learn to love. That's because love is more natural. That's the phrase he left us with.
In today's world, when people are attacked, they attack back. And to defend themselves, they destroy and even kill. But there is something greater than this violence.
And this greater thing is more natural. I thought it was wonderful. Can you comment on these two things?
There's a story from the Guarani people about the founding of the world that could help us understand this dilemma of hating and loving, which says that people who live and end this cycle of life, have their spirit travel and make their cosmic journey, have to pass under a net where an owl is vigilant. If the spirit makes any noise when passing under the net, this being catches it. Noise is something you can't control, just like the ability to love and hate.
This experience of hating, seeking revenge, waging war and the desire to love, to live in peace, conflicts within each of us, regardless of culture. For me, this story of the owl that watches over the passage of the soul is the most beautiful story about loving and hating. It's up to each of us to sort ourselves out, or be caught when passing under the net.
I heard this story for the first time and it moved me, it's nice. That's because in the past, when I asked you: "Where do people go when they die? " You replied: "People return to a great energy and then they come back, they are reborn".
I kept that striking image. But according to what you've just said, there's a big net, a sieve. And when they present envy, greed, they don't even make it through the sieve to return to the Great Energy.
This story is marvellous. More than a story, it is a great wisdom from the ancient peoples, and not just the ancient peoples, but also from people who have faced many struggles, like Mandela, like Massoud from Afghanistan, these people who have conquered wisdom. By creating a network of wisdom from these people, we can build a new era.
That's what I thought. <i> What should we do to get off the island? </i> <i>Through the bridge, through the bridge.
. . </i> <i>What should we do to get off the island?
</i> <i>Through the bridge, through the bridge. </i> Maybe that's how it is. Not that they've worked out what to do with this duality of love and hate, but they've learnt to sieve it out and not keep poison in their hearts.
They indeed had fear, anger and a desire for revenge, but they filtered it out and didn't let it sicken their hearts. The story of the owl suggests that not every flow goes into this cosmic energy, some are returned to some sort of. .
. great furnace, a volcano, sending us back to this place of hatred, rancour, and revenge. This ocean of ignorance, right?
In today's world, people with wisdom are little publicised, little recognised and little promoted. On the contrary, more publicity is given to techniques for making money. The media, TV and newspapers go after people who talk about money, but the truly wise and important people are very little publicised.
I look precisely for these people: those who have wisdom, who have a good heart; whom I record with photos. How about it, Ailton? Are you praying?
It's almost impossible to express a consensus on what wisdom is today. Almost impossible. What is wisdom in this broad context of needy people who need to externalise life instead of living it within themselves?
Finding people who can guide the wisdom of life is very difficult indeed. The few people who are willing to do so are execrated, cursed, because they avoid showing off. .
. And to avoid showing off is to not let yourself be seen, it's as if the secret of wisdom was hidden. Their generosity, their willingness to share this wisdom is not welcome.
The art world, in the broad sense, is becoming the last refuge of those who want to share their generosity to the world. The art world has become a refuge. And this refuge of the art world, be it in literature, in representations like Tomie Ohtake with her works of art, or in dance, or in any language in which universal art expresses itself, is becoming a kind of other world, where this giving experience, even in your photography environment.
. . because even though you're an activist, you're an artist, so you're an art-activist.
You take refuge in this world of art, because the world outside is dangerous. Yes. When I remember Massoud from Afghanistan, even today that country suffers from gender apartheid.
And they don't give people access to education. It's still a difficult situation, but I always remember Massoud saying, amid his struggles: "One day this war will end", "One day we will have peace". I kept doubting and fearing that peace would never come.
But if you give up hope that one day it will change, hope won't even be born. However small it may be, it's very important to keep on holding it. Like him, you, Ailton, have greatly influenced my hope, when I received your best messages of hope, with you as my guide in a world that was unknown and invisible to me.
I have come to absorb these worlds and thoughts. I must certainly continue. I'm going to keep taking photos and presenting them to the world.
We still have plans for photo exhibitions in three other places in Brazil. I need your support, Ailton, so that more people can see these photos. I'm counting on your production, okay?
Whoa. . .
Watch out!
