KO'EYENE – Curatorial statement

Rooted in the variety of tree species that soround the Staatstheater Braunschweig in the Theater- and Museumspark, Festival Theaterformen 2024 proposes to make space for opportunities to slow down and embrace alternative temporalities attuned to a more holistic and non-chronological understanding of time encompassing past, present, and future simultaneously. The program proposes to counter an idea of progress oriented towards a future yet to be created and disrupt the linear conception of time prevalent in Western thought. Instead, it will shed light on a sense of "today" that honors the interconnected web of life.

Taking as a point of departure the Terena Indigenous people's term "Ko'eyene", meaning "today," Theaterformen will explore the lives of various tree species that inhabit the Theatre Park by celebrating the interconnectedness of various temporal scales, encompassing all beings who traverse the park – both human and non-human. Centering on how each tree holds a unique perspective, it will reflect on how things and beings exist in the here and now.

The curators of the Ko'eyene program for Festival Theaterformen 2024 in Braunschweig are Denilson Baniwa, Naine Terena, Gustavo Caboco, and Jamille Pinheiro Dias. Through interdisciplinary artistic practices ranging from ceramics to photography, from video projection to basketry, they will invite Indigenous artists and collectives, as well as the different communities from Braunschweig, to embrace temporal dimensions that reflect ancestral knowledge and ongoing struggles against colonial legacies.

Ko'eyene will also engage with the insights of Indigenous thinker and environmentalist Ailton Krenak's "Ancestral Future" (Polity, 2024). Krenak's observations about capitalism's influence on our perception of the future serve as one of the frameworks informing this program, which seeks to challenge the hegemony of an idealized time, instead advocating for a deeper connection to the present and acknowledgment of our entanglements with non-human beings. As Krenak argues, the relentless pursuit of an imagined future has led to devastating effects on biodiversity, climate change, and the environment writ large, as our planet is increasingly subjected to the pressures of this rapid acceleration. Krenak states that constantly looking to the future causes us to neglect the present, leading to ramifications that surpass human suffering and extend across the entire ecosystem.

The guest artists brought together by Ko'eyene come from the Baniwa, Terena, Wapichana, Macuxi, Shipibo-Konibo, Kadiwel, Karapotó, and Qom peoples. Their perspectives may stem from diverse cultures, but they still resonate through their respective cosmologies, their shared struggles against extractivism, and their defense of traditional knowledge, practices, and territories. Ko'eyene will offer a stage for these artists to convene and co-organize, transcending geopolitical boundaries. This approach recognizes that nation-state borders often do not align with the ancestral lands inhabited by Indigenous populations, emphasizing the need for other spaces for encounter and cross-cultural pollination.

The call for a more just presence of the agency and autonomy of Indigenous voices within the arts and beyond remains urgent, given that the representation of Indigenous perspectives in art spaces has often been fraught with issues of exoticism and tokenism. By answering this call and bringing together Indigenous artists from diverse South American peoples and regions at Festival Theaterformen 2024, Ko'eyene will encourage intercultural dialogue, serving as a platform for the formation of potential networks of exchange and collaboration led by Indigenous artists themselves. This gathering will serve as a site of solidarity and collective action, empowering Indigenous artists to address shared challenges and advocate for Indigenous rights and sovereignty on a transnational and multilingual stage.

Denilson Baniwa, Naine Terena, Gustavo Caboco & Jamille Pinheiro Dias

Information on the Ko'eyene-curators Gustavo Caboco, Naine Terena, Denilson Baniwa and Jamille Pinheiro Dias will be provided shortly.