The Huni Kuin Artists Movement (MAHKU)was officially founded in 2013 after several university drawing workshops were held in the upper Rio Jordão region, Brazil, near the Peru border. In the large mural created for the façade of the Central Pavilion, MAHKU has painted the story of kapewë pukeni (the alligator bridge). The myth describes the passage between the Asian and American continents through the Bering Strait. In order to cross it, the humans found an alligator who offered to carry them across the Strait on its back in exchange for food. However, as they crossed, animals became increasingly scarce and the humans ultimately resorted to hunting a small alligator, betraying the trust of the large one, who submerged itself beneath the sea. Thus originated the separation between different people and places. This myth underscores MAHKU and its members as the producers and products of passages between distant contexts and territories, connecting the visible aspects of their art to the invisible nature of their visions, through the association and translation between traditional village practices and the parameters and conventions of the art world.
This is the first time the work of MAHKU is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Guilherme Giufrida
