RECLAIMING OUR CULTURE: XAKRIABÁ POTTERY
Nei Leite Xakriabá’s work ticks three important boxes of mine: my anthropological curiosity, my love of ceramics, and my interest in indigenous cultures. The story of Brazil’s Xakriabá is an all too familiar one: a native people confronting centuries of settler colonialism’s ever-expanding reach into their homeland, coupled with attempts to eradicate their unique identity. Nei’s ceramics reclaim the Xakriabá worldview premised on an intimate relationship with their natural and spiritual environment. Taught to model clay by his mother—an accomplished ceramicist in her own right—Nei is dedicated to transmitting this key cultural heritage to young Xakriabá in their villages.
– Walter L. Meyer, AWB Founder
Be sure to click on the square thumbnail images to view the larger, complete images, and to read Nei’s tales of enchanted snakes, birds that predict rain and death, and a woman transformed for all eternity into a jaguar.
