Archives of the Earth

Navegante Tremembé is an Indigenous artist from the Varjota village, in the interior of Ceará, Brazil. For over forty years, she has developed her paintings using toá, an ancestral Indigenous technique based on natural pigments collected from her ancestral territory. Toá is a colored earth derived from geological layers formed billions of years ago. The color and materiality of her paintings carry deeply ancient memories of the planet—they are archaeological relics from a time preceding humanity’s predatory existence. In this sense, her works function as archives of the earth, preserving knowledge and mysteries that offer alternative ways of confronting climate collapse and the environmental crisis.

Today, Navegante’s ancestral territory is under dispute by monoculture enterprises and organized groups. This conflict has led to the destruction of native trees and plant life, as well as the disappearance of birds and local fauna. Through her paintings of these trees and birds, Navegante articulates a form of resistance—denouncing coloniality and the extractive logic of capitalist exploitation of nature. Her practice is therefore inherently political: it records, preserves, and memorializes what is on the verge of disappearance.

Her canvases intertwine personal experience, Tremembé cosmology, memory, and imagination, giving rise to dreamlike compositions characterized by synthetic figuration, spatial economy, and an Indigenous geometry. These ancestral landscapes stand as enduring reminders of the intrinsic connection among all forms of life within nature.

Lucas Dilacerda
Curator, AICA – International Association of Art Critics