Ancestral Ceramic Technology, 2024–2025

Abstract

This project stems from a revival: Irineu Terena builds bridges between indigenous communities of the same ethnic group in Mato Grosso do Sul and São Paulo, to revive a dormant ceramic practice within his own community, Kopenoti, in Bauru. The videos show the artist’s dialogue with relatives of the Terena people from the Argola community in Mato Grosso do Sul. This contact transforms collective learning into a politics of memory, keeping alive the ancestral technology of ceramics. The video is edited by Guylherme Karay. It presents the revival of clay as a living practice, Traditionally, Terena ceramics are a female craft; here, the artist positions himself as an apprentice, respecting the rhythms of the masters. The largest sculpture represents the changes that the exchanges brought about in Irineu: from a rigid cube—a symbol of colonial realism— human figures emerge, breaking the symmetry. By returning to ceramics through the knowledge of his people, the work marks a shift for the indigenous artist who previously considered it important to meet the expectations of Art History. In Bauru, without access to the red clay of Mato Grosso do Sul, Irineu
continues his research into local clays. From the master potters, he learned to respect the connection between clay and the cosmos, the lunar cycle, and water. What other ancestral technologies lie dormant? And how can their revival be understood as living memory, creating from new contexts while respecting ancestral protocols? Irineu Nje’a Terena developed this work at the invitation of the project Decay Without Mourning | Future Thinking Heritage Practices, by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.