Entirely filmed in the Javarí Reserve, in the far west of the Amazon rainforest, on the triple border between Brazil, Peru and Colombia, O Avesso do Céu focuses on the conversion massively practiced by neo-pentecostals churches among the last recently-contacted indigenous peoples on the continent, present in this region, and its serious consequences for the environment.

The process is ancient and has been repeated for centuries: churches receive funds from private and predatory interests to launch evangelization missions among the indigenous people and thus begin the commercial exploitation of the territory, through the illegal extraction of wood, minerals, fauna, fisheries and flora from regions officially demarcated as preserved indigenous reserves. These missions destabilize the natural balance of entire regions and alter or exterminate the modus vivendi of the original inhabitants of these lands.

The camera navigates up the remote Javari River. It starts at a traditional initiation ritual among a Ticuna family in the Alto Solimões, documents a considerably large but illegal wood extraction site on its banks and arrives at the surprisingly recently established christian community of Nova Jerusalém.

The cataclysm we see with the arrival of the missionaries is only the beginning of a total loss of identity and the transformation of indigenous culture into an insane and miserable christian context that, in fact, borders on madness.

“The “Word of God”, spread like a plague by today’s neo-pentecostals, not only “opens paths and moves mountains”, but also eradicates original forms of life and culture. If faith is the power of each individual to relate to their existence, religion emerges as a colonizing element of that faith, manifesting itself as a new territory of altered identity.”
– Dias & Riedweg

Entirely filmed in the Javarí Reserve, in the far west of the Amazon rainforest, on the triple border between Brazil, Peru and Colombia, O Avesso do Céu focuses on the conversion massively practiced by neo-pentecostals churches among the last recently-contacted indigenous peoples on the continent, present in this region, and its serious consequences for the environment.

The process is ancient and has been repeated for centuries: churches receive funds from private and predatory interests to launch evangelization missions among the indigenous people and thus begin the commercial exploitation of the territory, through the illegal extraction of wood, minerals, fauna, fisheries and flora from regions officially demarcated as preserved indigenous reserves. These missions destabilize the natural balance of entire regions and alter or exterminate the modus vivendi of the original inhabitants of these lands.

The camera navigates up the remote Javari River. It starts at a traditional initiation ritual among a Ticuna family in the Alto Solimões, documents a considerably large but illegal wood extraction site on its banks and arrives at the surprisingly recently established christian community of Nova Jerusalém.

The cataclysm we see with the arrival of the missionaries is only the beginning of a total loss of identity and the transformation of indigenous culture into an insane and miserable christian context that, in fact, borders on madness.

“The “Word of God”, spread like a plague by today’s neo-pentecostals, not only “opens paths and moves mountains”, but also eradicates original forms of life and culture. If faith is the power of each individual to relate to their existence, religion emerges as a colonizing element of that faith, manifesting itself as a new territory of altered identity.”
– Dias & Riedweg

Entirely filmed in the Javarí Reserve, in the far west of the Amazon rainforest, on the triple border between Brazil, Peru and Colombia, O Avesso do Céu focuses on the conversion massively practiced by neo-pentecostals churches among the last recently-contacted indigenous peoples on the continent, present in this region, and its serious consequences for the environment.

The process is ancient and has been repeated for centuries: churches receive funds from private and predatory interests to launch evangelization missions among the indigenous people and thus begin the commercial exploitation of the territory, through the illegal extraction of wood, minerals, fauna, fisheries and flora from regions officially demarcated as preserved indigenous reserves. These missions destabilize the natural balance of entire regions and alter or exterminate the modus vivendi of the original inhabitants of these lands.

The camera navigates up the remote Javari River. It starts at a traditional initiation ritual among a Ticuna family in the Alto Solimões, documents a considerably large but illegal wood extraction site on its banks and arrives at the surprisingly recently established christian community of Nova Jerusalém.

The cataclysm we see with the arrival of the missionaries is only the beginning of a total loss of identity and the transformation of indigenous culture into an insane and miserable christian context that, in fact, borders on madness.

“The “Word of God”, spread like a plague by today’s neo-pentecostals, not only “opens paths and moves mountains”, but also eradicates original forms of life and culture. If faith is the power of each individual to relate to their existence, religion emerges as a colonizing element of that faith, manifesting itself as a new territory of altered identity.”
– Dias & Riedweg

Entirely filmed in the Javarí Reserve, in the far west of the Amazon rainforest, on the triple border between Brazil, Peru and Colombia, O Avesso do Céu focuses on the conversion massively practiced by neo-pentecostals churches among the last recently-contacted indigenous peoples on the continent, present in this region, and its serious consequences for the environment.

The process is ancient and has been repeated for centuries: churches receive funds from private and predatory interests to launch evangelization missions among the indigenous people and thus begin the commercial exploitation of the territory, through the illegal extraction of wood, minerals, fauna, fisheries and flora from regions officially demarcated as preserved indigenous reserves. These missions destabilize the natural balance of entire regions and alter or exterminate the modus vivendi of the original inhabitants of these lands.

The camera navigates up the remote Javari River. It starts at a traditional initiation ritual among a Ticuna family in the Alto Solimões, documents a considerably large but illegal wood extraction site on its banks and arrives at the surprisingly recently established christian community of Nova Jerusalém.

The cataclysm we see with the arrival of the missionaries is only the beginning of a total loss of identity and the transformation of indigenous culture into an insane and miserable christian context that, in fact, borders on madness.

“The “Word of God”, spread like a plague by today’s neo-pentecostals, not only “opens paths and moves mountains”, but also eradicates original forms of life and culture. If faith is the power of each individual to relate to their existence, religion emerges as a colonizing element of that faith, manifesting itself as a new territory of altered identity.”
– Dias & Riedweg

Hans Staden was born in the region of Kassel in the 16th Century. He was shipwrecked and washed up on the coast of what would soon be Brazil, whereupon he was held captive by Tupinambá Indians for two years. He later published his book Wahrhaftige Historia [true story, in free translation] an illustrated account of this adventure, that was largely responsible for searing the image of the savage, cannibal–infested tropics into the European mind, fuelling a cliché that would be used to legitimize violent colonization.

Following a commissioning for Documenta 12, in 2007, Dias & Riedweg re-enact this universe within the aesthetics of funk carioca, a genuine contemporary cultural expression of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. In Kassel, during the Documenta, the work was presented as a three-screen video installation alternated with three mirroring surfaces, which created an octagonal arena that involved viewers in a kind of anthropophagical pot.

Here, Vermelho presents the Woodcut series, where Dias & Riedweg reenact original woodcuts from chapter XXIX of Hans Staden’s book, those that narrate details of the preparation of an anthropophagic banquet. The images were allegorically reconstructed with funkeiros and photographed on a slab barbecue on the top of Santa Marta hill, in Rio de Janeiro.

Hans Staden was born in the region of Kassel in the 16th Century. He was shipwrecked and washed up on the coast of what would soon be Brazil, whereupon he was held captive by Tupinambá Indians for two years. He later published his book Wahrhaftige Historia [true story, in free translation] an illustrated account of this adventure, that was largely responsible for searing the image of the savage, cannibal–infested tropics into the European mind, fuelling a cliché that would be used to legitimize violent colonization.

Following a commissioning for Documenta 12, in 2007, Dias & Riedweg re-enact this universe within the aesthetics of funk carioca, a genuine contemporary cultural expression of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. In Kassel, during the Documenta, the work was presented as a three-screen video installation alternated with three mirroring surfaces, which created an octagonal arena that involved viewers in a kind of anthropophagical pot.

Here, Vermelho presents the Woodcut series, where Dias & Riedweg reenact original woodcuts from chapter XXIX of Hans Staden’s book, those that narrate details of the preparation of an anthropophagic banquet. The images were allegorically reconstructed with funkeiros and photographed on a slab barbecue on the top of Santa Marta hill, in Rio de Janeiro.

The 2008 video shows Maurício Dias and Walter Riedweg leafing through the original book by Hans Staden, where the explorer narrates his adventures and mishaps in tropical lands. The book is part of the Kassel library, which lent the volume for the video recording. When the woodcuts that illustrate the narrative appear, excerpts from videos by Dias & Riedweg overlap the images, creating a juxtaposition between the invader’s narrative and the aesthetics of funk in Rio de Janeiro.

The 2008 video shows Maurício Dias and Walter Riedweg leafing through the original book by Hans Staden, where the explorer narrates his adventures and mishaps in tropical lands. The book is part of the Kassel library, which lent the volume for the video recording. When the woodcuts that illustrate the narrative appear, excerpts from videos by Dias & Riedweg overlap the images, creating a juxtaposition between the invader’s narrative and the aesthetics of funk in Rio de Janeiro.