-Installation of The Cosmic Anaconda

On the occasion of the exhibiton:

ORINOCO, Indians of the Amazon Rainforest
by the Cisneros Foundation

at the Slovene Ethnographic Musuem.

The COSMIC ANACONDA by ARTE AMAZONIA @ SEM, a 32 meter (107ft) sculpture made from 201 Yanomami baskets, manifesting the mythological serpent symbolizing ancient knowledge and transformation.

Each basket is hand painted with geometric designs including lines, waves, dots, circles, crosses and the double helix by the Yanomami women, embodying their cultural history dating back thousands of years.

The COSMIC ANACONDA takes the viewer into the heart of the Amazon,

where the viewer confronts the power of ancient knowledge.

This installation took 6 hours to complete accompanied with the film:

Woven Songs of the Amazon by Anna Stevens of Green Spider Films, and the recorded icaros, the traditional healing music of the Shipibo, by Barrett Martin.

"It embodies the diabolical relationships of the interconnections between the inner/outer, macro/micro, past/future, man/nature and the dead/living."

"a zen of archaic symbols"

"a powerful jungle yantra"

"Thank you, in my mother's name, as you know my mother is from the Wa-Yuu, from Maracaibo's lake south side shores (Venezuela). It is very impressive and amazing that a blond tall giant European like you and your wife dedicate so much love investigation and attention to all of those who owned the lands before any other civilizations on the American continent, at least, there are still some aboriginal cultures on south America to preserve, because up in the north side or our beloved American continent, the descendants of Sitting Bull, The Black Foot, Crows, Comanches, Arapahoes, Sioux and many others are almost totally extinct..."- Jose Daniel Verdi Flores

Slovene Ethnographic Museum

September 25 - Novemeber 17th, 2011