OCHER context
“Serra da Capivara in N.E. Brazil is the largest and most important rock art complex in the world. It has over 900 sites with hundreds of thousands of images painted mainly with ochre. Dating of stone tools and fireplaces suggests humans first came to live there maybe as much as 50 thousand years ago, and the oldest art seems to be around 13 thousand years old. Yet it remains much less well known than sites in Europe or Australia, this is in part due to its location well off the tourist trail in Brazil. But it is mostly due to the naïve assumption that any cultural and symbolic developments in South America must be more recent and of lesser significance than anything in Europe and North America. Serra da Capivara is undoubtedly controversial, but its importance deserves much more recognition on the world stage.
Anita Ekman’s art goes a long way towards bringing the brilliant rock art images at Serra da Capivara to world attention. ”
David Turnbull, Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Institute (ADI), Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
‘Ochre’ is the result of three years of artistic research of Anita Ekman on the area with the highest concentration of rock art on the Americas and probably on Earth: the Serra da Capivara National Park, located in Brazil[1] and on the Paleolithic Caves in Europe (El Castillo and El Chufín) , Spain. [2]
‘Ochre’ put in constellation different spaces and times, creating an original panorama of art and archaeology through artistic languages (performance, video, photography, painting and ceramic sculptures).
[1] The Serra da Capivara National Park was founded 40 years ago by a group of pioneering female archaeologists working in Northeast Brazil. Led by Niéde Guidon, this group includes Gabriela Martin of Spain and Anne Marie Pessis of France, co-founders of the Museum of the American Man Foundation. With women playing key roles in the diverse activities of this foundation, the research carried out by Niéde Guidon and her co-workers transformed the understanding of human occupation in the Americas, demonstrating the existence of camp fires dating back 48,000 years Before Present (B.P.). The rock art of Serra da Capivara National Park was produced approximately 10,000 to 2000 B.P.
[2] The Paleolithic art in the caves of Cantabria, Spain, have strikingly ancient creation dates. Recent studies indicate dates of up to 63,000 B.P. for the art in the La Pasiega Cave, suggesting this rock art was created by Neanderthals. The rock art in El Castillo Cave has been dated at 40,000 B.P.
The first performance of Anita Ekman in Toca do Inferno, Serra da Capivara National Park, 2017. Ana Mesquita photographer.
The project 'Ochre' that began in 2017, in the Serra da Capivara National Park, located in the backlands of Piaui, Brazil, with the support of David Turnbull (a Senior Research Fellow of the Victorian Eco Innovation Lab at the Faculty of Architecture of Melbourne University) and the collaboration of the Brazilian photographer Ana Mesquita.
In 2019 Anita Ekman Anita received Karl Werner Pothmann support for film and performance production.
In 2019 and 2020 Anita Ekman continues her research and production of works in the Serra da Capivara National Park and the Paleolithic Caves of Cantabria, Spain with the support of Echoes of the South Atlantic Goethe-Institut (Project Wombs of the Atlantic Rainforest) and Karl Werner Pothman