The Tukano Bench
Curatorship, Filmmaking, and Documentary Photography for the Ethnological Museum Berlin, and the Humboldt Forum, Berlin.
The project documented, through photos and videos, the stages of creating the Tukano bench – a traditional object of the Tukano people inhabiting the Uaupés River basin. This documentation is part of the efforts to valorize the knowledge of the indigenous peoples in the region, supported by the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) since the 1990s.
This documentation, carried out in 2019, was part of a partnership between ISA and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin in the context of the Museu4punkt0 project, which focused on creating digital support material for exhibitions at the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace.
The commissioning required documentation focused on the production chain of crafting this object, including the collection of raw materials, processing, crafting the object, and finishing and decorating stages. To capture the images, in addition to observing these activities, a small portable studio with natural light was set up in an indigenous village.
Video testimonials were collected, describing these production processes and how these objects are used, circulated, and connected to traditional stories.
In the end, the Tukano benches produced in the context of the documentation were acquired by two museums, the Humboldt Forum in Germany, and the Museu do Índio/FUNAI/RJ, which helped strengthen the commercialization chains of indigenous products supported by Tukano producer associations and ISA.
