objectified child, originally uploaded by naica.

So it has taken me a while to cobble some sort of critique of the Amazonia Brasil exhibit that’s down at the South Street Seaport now until July or something.
What can I say about it except it was a multi-media fiasco of diorama sized proportions. Literally. Dioramas your kid could probably make, though maybe not a detailed, proliferated throughout the large space as well as potted plants packed close together along thie sides of the river/forest-dioramaii. Ensconced within the lush-like confines of the foliage were card board cutouts of the Native peoples who were supposed to have been part of the whole shebang. At least according to a press release I had read on the Seaport website. Well, maybe they could get visas? I, for one, was diappointed. it truly was an under-whelming experience since I along with NAICA contributing writer and resident anthropologist, Logan Green paid $16.00 dollars to enter, but not before a vaguely Indian looking Latina prompted us to go all the way through to the back where the giftshop was located. Ahhh but of course there would be a giftshop! And come to find out this “giftshop” was really a separate store that sold trinkets and such purchased for pennies from the Native peoples of the beleaguered rainforest. It would probably not come as a surprise but that shit was expensive!
I bought a necklace.
I felt bad for ten minutes. It’s a pretty cool necklace made from some shell or another. I feel like an asshole. Worse than a tourist.
Anyway, a booze cruise (a cruise ship you pay to float around on and drink ’til you puke) had just docked to let off it’s white Jersey-drunk inhabitants who made idiotic comments about the jungle and their “jungle fever” which could only be squelched by more “jungle juice.”
Logan and I would later see this same group of morons getting even more drunk at a bar in the mall, also along Pier 17.
See how convenient it is to visit the Amazon, purchase some khaki shorts at Banana Republic and get drunk at a happy hour in one of several drinking establishments? Lower Manhattan Commercial developers have thought of nothing but your pleasure: conveniently located exoticism coupled with cheap alcohol and sweatshop attire = An all-American good time.

For more of the horrible exhibit visit our gallery page up top. If you have a conscience of any kind you will feel disgusted too.

“A spokesman for the Japanese cabinet said Friday that the government would officially recognize the Ainu [backgrounder] – an ethnic minority mainly concentrated on Japan’s Hokkaido island who traditionally lived by hunting, gathering and fishing – as an indigenous population after both houses of the country’s parliament unanimously endorsed a non-binding resolution urging the move. The spokesman added that the government will establish a committee to discuss measures to protect members of the group. The long-resisted official recognition comes in response to Japan’s obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People [PDF text], passed [JURIST report] by the UN General Assembly last September with Japan’s support. This will be the first time that Japan has recognized a group as indigenous. Bloomberg has more. The Mainichi Daily News has local coverage.”

“The Japanese government has long been accused of discriminating against the Ainu, despite a 1997 law [text] meant to protect Ainu rights. Previous to that, the Ainu fell under the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigine Protection Law, which promoted their assimilation with mainstream Japanese society. Experts say that the government’s traditional assimilation policy [CWIS backgrounder] and wide-spread discrimination have reduced the Ainu population and has led to the group trailing behind the rest of the nation in education and income.”

[Source]

Deadline to submit: Monday, July 14, 2008

The 7th Annual Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival (WAFF) invites you to submit your work to one of North America’s longest-running indigenous film and video festivals, happening this November 20-23, 2008.

Call For Submissions!!!!!!

Submissions are now being accepted in 7 categories. WAFF pays screening fees to artists and there is no submission fee for entries received on or before the mid-July deadline.

For complete rules and entry forms, go to www.aboriginalfilmfest.org or email info@aboriginalfilmfest.org.

Image: cyberTRIBE

the other APT has been selected for inclusion in the 2008 Biennale of Sydney’s Online Venue. As part of the forthcoming Biennale, Revolutions – Forms That Turn, Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev has selected digital artworks and texts to be featured in its Online Venue. The exhibition as a whole and the Online Venue particularly, focuses on the different ways artists have ‘revolutionised’ contemporary art. It explores the impulse to revolt, rotating, turning upside down, shifting points of view, revolving, mirroring and reversing as formal devices, as well as chart their broader aesthetic, psychological, psychoanalytical, radical and political perspectives.

Held over the 2006/2007 summer in Brisbane the other APT was a multi-artform exhibition that coincided with and questioned the Queensland Art Gallerys 5th Asia Pacific Triennial, with a similar focus – of art within the Asia-Pacific region, but with local artists included. Presented by cyberTribe which has a history of almost a decade in Online Curating, the exhibition website allowed audiences for the other APT to be far reaching internationally, along with the celebration and exhibition program held at Raw Space Galleries in Brisbane. Curator Jenny Fraser says of the exhibition “The primary curatorial premise of the other APT was to show artworks from Indigenous Australian Artists, and also show meaningful works from other Artists that may constitute them as a friend in culture and good visitor to this country, in meaningful dialogue and otherwise. In other words, Aboriginals actively engaging with each other, and those from other cultural backgrounds – Torres Strait Islander, Melanesian, Maori, Samoan, Japanese, Filipino and others from outside the Asia-Pacific Rim, providing a true survey, commenting on individual and shared experience. Naturally some of these works are collaborations – existing works, and also works produced especially for the other APT, but all really important discourse, culturally and historically. It is important that it has been acknowledged by the Curator of the Biennale of Sydney.”

The Online Venue will provide a wider context to the physical 2008 Biennale of Sydney, as well as constitute a space of its own. The Online Venue is the first of its kind in the world and thus a revolutionary form of presentation for the Biennale. With an emphasis on exploration and discovery, the non-linear navigation allows the user to explore and view artworks in an intuitive way. The Biennales website presents a selection of artist projects in a dynamic constellation. Works are linked together by curatorial themes. Each visit to the site presents a new set of linked works to view, keeping the site fresh and brimming with new juxtapositions. the other APT , has also been invited to tour to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia later this year.