ACASA GRINGO CARDIA DESIGN

As forests burn, rivers dry, and the climate shifts, OCA RED connects visitors at the Biennale to contemporary science and ancestral knowledge from the Amazonian Xingu, which we will need if we are to live better together. In the Xingu territory, on the central plateaus of Brazil, sixteen indigenous communities maintain the first millennium existence of their ancestors, defending their lands, rivers, forests, and culture while negotiating transitions and exchanges with contemporary life. OCA RED is an interpretation of an oca, the traditional house of Brazilian indigenous peoples for over a thousand years. It is an invitation to the world to connect to the Xingu way of living together, celebrating indigenous, communal ways of living in harmony with the earth, and raising the question of how we will live together in a collapsing world.

Image 1 – How will we live together?
Traditional ancestral house (oca) at the Ipatse Village of the Kuikuro, in the Xingu Indigenous Territory, Brazil’s Amazon.

Image 2 – Sneak peek of the project
At the Biennale Architettura 2021, the story of the Kuikuro people from the Xingu territories in Brazil becomes our story, connecting us to living better together.

Queen Mary University of London
Sandhini Poddar and William
Sargent
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Arts Council England

OCA RED has been produced by the Kuikuro People in partnership with ACASAGRINGOCARDIA and People’s Palace Projects (Queen Mary University of London)

Curatorial project Takumã Kuikuro, Gringo Cardia, Paul Heritage
Artistic project: ACASAGRINGOCARDIA
Production: Thiago Jesus, Jackson Tinoco, Corinne Mazzoli
Video Installation: Takumã Kuikuro and Kuikuro Cinema Collective, Glauber Vianna
Sound: Nathaniel Mann, Takumã Kuikuro