Denilson Baniwa, an artist-activist born in the Darí village in the heart of the Amazon, embodies techno-ancestral intervention in the world of contemporary art. His work, spanning painting, performance, activism, and curatorship, engages in a dialogue that echoes through time, intertwining the ancestral traditions of his people with present-day digital tools. Baniwa wields art as a weapon against the historical invisibility and cultural erasure of Indigenous peoples, inviting the decolonization of perception and the breaking of Eurocentric thought patterns. In his “re-anthropophagy,” Western culture is transformed and returned with a unique flavor, imbued with Indigenous identity. Technology, once an instrument of domination, becomes a tool of resistance and empowerment, amplifying Indigenous voices and building bridges between cultures. Denilson Baniwa’s art is a cultural feast that invites the celebration of Indigenous ancestral strength, the beauty of diversity, and the urgent struggle for a more just and equal future.
Technological Appropriation and Digital Colonialism
Digital colonialism can be understood as the perpetuation of power relations through digital technologies, in which Indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities are often reduced to passive consumers of Westernized content. Baniwa, however, subverts this logic by using digital platforms as spaces for assertion and resistance. His activism manifests through the creation of narratives that challenge the hegemonic vision of Brazilian history and culture.
The co-founding of Rádio Yandê in 2013 exemplifies this stance. As Brazil’s first Indigenous radio station with an international reach, the platform provides a space for the dissemination of Indigenous perspectives without mediation from traditional communication institutions. In this way, technology is appropriated as a communication tool and, at the same time, as a means of resistance against historical and cultural erasure.
Re-Anthropophagy and the Subversion of Representations
Baniwa coined the term “re-anthropophagy” to describe his artistic strategy of appropriating and re-signifying Western culture. Drawing inspiration from Oswald de Andrade’s Anthropophagic Manifesto, Baniwa reverses the modernist gaze and subjects it to Indigenous critique. Unlike Brazilian modernism, which appropriated Indigenous elements without acknowledging their original contexts and agents, Baniwa “devours” Western iconography and discourses to decolonize and reintegrate them into a new framework of Indigenous protagonism.
A striking example of this approach is the performance “Pajé-Onça Hackeando a 33ª Bienal de Artes de São Paulo” (2018). In this work, Baniwa walked through the city of São Paulo to the Biennial, wearing a jaguar mask and tearing apart an art history book. This action criticized the historical exclusion of Indigenous peoples from the official artistic narrative and questioned how the contemporary art circuit continues to portray Indigenous people as figures of the past.
Technology as a Space for Contestation and Recovery
Baniwa also explores digital technologies to challenge colonial monuments and memories. The work “Brasil Terra Indígena” (2020), a laser projection on the Monumento às Bandeiras in São Paulo, subverts the symbolism of this historical landmark. The animation of a sinking caravel, while Indigenous elements emerge, proposes a critical reinterpretation of the official colonization narrative, transforming the urban landscape itself into a space of resistance.
The digitization of art is also a strategy to expand access and bring visibility to Indigenous narratives. The exhibition “INÍPO: Caminho de transformação” (2021-2022) at the Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul included a virtual space, reinforcing the use of the internet as a field of artistic and political action. In this sense, cyberspace becomes an arena of dispute, where Indigenous voices reconstruct their histories and occupy spaces traditionally denied to them.
Conclusion
Denilson Baniwa’s work exemplifies how contemporary Indigenous art goes beyond aesthetic representation to function as a political and critical instrument. By appropriating digital technologies, Baniwa questions digital colonialism and proposes an inversion of power dynamics, placing Indigenous peoples at the center of the narrative. His “re-anthropophagy” reveals a movement of resistance and reinvention, where technology, far from being merely a tool of domination, becomes a space for struggle, memory, and cultural affirmation.