Exhibition
Prune Nourry / Takao Shiraishi: ANIMA
5 Mar 2016 – 14 Apr 2016
Address
- 51 Bergen Street
- New York
New York - 11201
- United States
The multi-sensory exhibition Anima is a meditation on the divide between Man and Animal and a reflection on the concept of the soul as told through a legendary Lacandon figure, K’in Obregon.
About
Obregon is an important character for the Lacandon Maya people, who have been living who have been living in the Mesoamerican Rainforest for centuries. Valentine Losseau, an anthropologist and dramatist, has been working with K’in Obregon’s family for seven years and spoke with K’in about his strange and mysterious life shortly before his death.
According to legend, K’in Obregon was invited to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1937 to be exhibited as a “native” in what today might be called a human zoo. This practice has been condemned for the dehumanization of indigenous peoples in portraying them as curiosities, as animals. K’in then returned to Mexico and his death was announced several years later. One day, however, he reappeared in his community, claiming he had been reincarnated.
Anima uses the tale of this enigmatic figure as a starting point to investigate the divide between animate and inanimate, human and animal, naturalism and animism. On the one hand, the “occidental” perspective places man above the natural world and the animal, both of which are devoid of the soul. For the Mayan, however, each of their lives are fundamentally linked to an animal totem, a creature existing simultaneously in the physical world and the underworld. Every night, the Lacandons turn themselves into animal forms in their dreams, which they view as a dimension of the real.
Visitors will partake in an experimental and sensorial experience lodged between forest and archeological site, immersed in a world of myth and magic. Children will be the main actors in this installation thanks to a supplemental book to enrich the visit, and will be invited to expand on the perspectives that change and evolve with the rise and fall of civilizations, eras and ecosystems. All are invited to ask: what if the relationship between humans and animals was not vertical, but horizontal, as equals? What if animals do have souls?
