Geography asks three questions:The Amazon is where I became a geographer. More specifically, while I was an undergraduate student in linguistics, a friend recommended that I take a class with a professor who had done a lot of research among the Kayapo and caboclos of the eastern Amazon basin -- specifically in the Xingu sub-basin -- and I was hooked. I took five classes with that professor. Some of these had to do with other facets of environmental geography, but all were rooted in his experiences in Brazil.
It took me about a decade to get there myself, for dissertation research in Rondônia in 1996 and again with my family in 2000, a biology student in 2003, for a conference presentation in 2019, and for a very long boat ride in 2023. Followers of this blog will have found some of the lessons learned scattered throughout. Many are gathered in the materals for my Amazônia: Fables to Forest course.
So when the algorithms began to tell me about the Amazonia açu exhibit in New York City, I began to make plans to visit. I had missed some of the fanfare around its opening and the opportunity to visit during our winter break. To make a very long story short, I was grateful to be able to get to the exhibit on its penultimate day with my spouse -- who is both the daughter and mother of artists and was with me on my second Amazon adventure. We were both very grateful for the experience!
It is not possible -- and probably not appropriate -- to capture the entire exhibit in my own photos. But I could not resist taking a few, which I have posted in a Flickr album. Until I get a chance to annotate the photos, the photos I took of many of the caption cards can help to guide viewers.
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| A Vaca tirando o serengueiro de casa (The cow taking the rubber tapper out of his home) |
This painting by Hélio Melo spoke most powerfully to me. He was born in Acre (pronounced AH-kree) in 1926 and lived as a rubber tapper (aviamento) for much of his live before becoming a painter. Many of his works are subtle commentaries about the lives of rubber tappers and their displacement by mining, cattle, and even sume rubber operations.
Note: It is not quite the same as being there, but the exhibt catalog -- which the curators call a pocket book because it is quite compact -- is available through the eponymous online retailer for just $5. Related fun fact: although I bought this book in person, my very first purchase on Amazon.com was another book about the region that informed the final drafts of my dissertation.
