The growing presence of indigenous artists in the contemporary art field provokes significant ruptures in the hegemonic discourses that historically control the art system. Among them, Kadu Xukuru (also known as Kadu Tapuya) stands out, a 26-year-old visual artist and cultural producer from the Xukuru do Ororubá people, whose work reconfigures the relationships between indigenous ancestry and digital technologies.
Origins and Training
Residing in the lands of the former Aldeia da Escada, in Pernambuco, Kadu works as a visual artist, photographer, and graphic designer. His ongoing academic training in History at the Catholic University of Pernambuco (UNICAP) complements his political engagement as a member of the Center for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies (NEABI) and the Social Movements Coordination of the Academic Directory of History.
As one of the leaders of the Indigenous South Forest Reclamation Movement, Kadu is part of a generation of artist-activists for whom artistic practice coexists with political activism and identity affirmation. This position reveals an essential characteristic of contemporary indigenous art: the interconnection between aesthetics and politics, artistic creation and cultural resistance.
Indigenous Futurism as Manifesto
The central concept guiding Kadu Xukuru’s production is “Indigenous Futurism” (#indigenousfuturism), an aesthetic-political proposal that primarily uses digital collage to project a future where indigenous peoples are protagonists of their narratives. This movement, which encompasses various artistic languages, constitutes a manifesto against colonial paradigms that relegate indigenous peoples to the past or extinction.
By appropriating digital tools to construct futuristic narratives led by indigenous people, Kadu achieves a double rupture: temporal and technological. The temporal rupture occurs when he rejects the confinement of native peoples to a museified past; the technological one happens by subverting the colonial logic that links the use of digital technologies exclusively to hegemonic centers of power.
Artistic Production and Recurring Themes
Kadu Xukuru’s work is characterized by the use of digital collage to create compositions that combine elements of indigenous cosmology with futuristic references. Frequently using photographs of indigenous relatives as characters, his creations address themes such as indigenous resistance, ancestral strength and knowledge, the struggle for land rights, and cultural preservation.
A significant example is the series “Washerwomen of ENA,” which portrays the slavery-like working relationship of indigenous women from his family with the Adventist Northeastern Educational Center. Through digital collage, Kadu recovers family and collective memories, addressing colonial exploitation and its continuities in contemporary labor relations.
Another relevant work is “Garrincha Tapuya,” which recovers national figures of indigenous origin frequently whitewashed by official historiography. This work highlights the systematic erasure of indigenous identities in public figures, demonstrating how colonialism also operates through historical and media narratives.
In the sequence “Hunter and Huntress,” the artist addresses the history of indigenous children being stolen, inverting roles by placing indigenous women in positions of empowerment and defense. This narrative subversion constitutes a recurring strategy in his work: rewriting history from indigenous perspectives.
Technology, Digital Colonialism, and Resistance
The incorporation of elements such as UFOs in his collages operates in a dual symbolic sense: on one hand, it represents colonial invasion under a new visual metaphor; on the other, it signals the indigenous appropriation of technologies historically associated with “whiteness.” This aesthetic operation demonstrates how Kadu transforms the digital medium into a field of symbolic dispute.
By using digital tools to amplify indigenous narratives, Kadu directly confronts the dynamics of digital colonialism. Suppose virtual spaces frequently reproduce hierarchies and exclusions of the physical world. In that case, Kadu’s work represents a countercurrent that uses these same technologies to affirm indigenous presence, resistance, and protagonism in the digital environment.
The appropriation of digital technologies to express indigenous and decolonial perspectives constitutes a form of resistance to Western domination over these tools. By photographing and digitally manipulating images of his people, Kadu reclaims control over indigenous representation, historically produced and disseminated under a colonial perspective that reinforced stereotypes and erased the agency of these peoples.
Memory, Inspiration, and Continuity
Dedicated to Xikão Xukuru, a chief assassinated in 1998 who led important territorial reclamation processes in Pernambuco, Kadu’s first solo exhibition demonstrates how his work inscribes itself in a line of continuity with his people’s historical struggles. The memory of Xicão, a crucial figure in the claim of Xukuru identity, remains a central inspiration in his production.
This memorial dimension of his work demonstrates how digital art can function as a support for the preservation and transmission of ancestral knowledge and struggles. By transposing to the digital medium the memory of leaders like Xicão, Kadu establishes bridges between different temporalities of indigenous resistance.
Positioning in the Contemporary Scene
Kadu Xukuru’s work is part of a broader movement to critically revise Brazilian history from a decolonial perspective. His collaboration with other artists and activists, such as Rayanne Lira, demonstrates the collective and articulated character of this artistic production, which transcends the individualism characteristic of the Western art system.
In Brazilian contemporary art, Kadu asserts himself as a disruptive voice that confronts dominant narratives through the strategic appropriation of digital technologies. His work contributes to the expansion of what we understand as “contemporary art,” incorporating indigenous perspectives, temporalities, and cosmologies in this field.
Final Considerations
Kadu Xukuru’s work demonstrates how digital technologies, far from being neutral tools, constitute fields of dispute in the context of contemporary colonial relations. By appropriating these technologies to create futuristic narratives led by indigenous people, Kadu simultaneously challenges the temporal confinement of native peoples to the past and Western domination over digital media.
The Indigenous Futurism proposed by the artist emerges as a powerful strategy of resistance to digital colonialism, using the very tools of this system to project futures where indigenous peoples occupy positions of protagonism. Thus, his artistic production constitutes not just an aesthetic expression, but a political act of decolonizing the imaginary and digital space.
By scrambling temporalities, questioning stereotypes, and rewriting history from indigenous perspectives, Kadu Xukuru decisively contributes to the emergence of new aesthetic and political paradigms in the context of Brazilian contemporary art. His work invites us to imagine futures where the diversity of indigenous knowledge, cosmologies, and forms of existence not only survive but flourish in critical dialogue with contemporary technologies