THE COSMIC ANACONDA

Manifested on the occasion of the: ORINOCO, Indians of the Amazon Rainforest Exhibition by the Cisneros Foundation at the Slovene

Ethnographi c Musuem, 2011:

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 world today must draw on 'ancient knowledge'

to preserve the future.

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."

"The 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

ABOUT ARTE AMAZONIA

ARTE AMAZONIA creates works which express

indigenous concepts through traditional objects combined with contemporary elements.

It is the collective expression of Heiko & Leah Dittmer who work with word, symbols, visual images, graphic arts & sounds combined with indigenous materials.

Their installations transcend the mere objects themselves, by extracting their ancient essences and projecting them

into modern environments.

Yakumama: The Gate Keeper, Ethnology Museum in Vienna 2012

COSMIC ANACONDA @ Slovene Ethnographic Museum, 2011