Contemporary art, in its multiplicity, has become a battlefield where hegemonic narratives are contested and power structures inherited from colonialism are challenged. It is within this terrain that Moara Tupinambá’s work (Belém do Pará, 1983) emerges as an act of re-existence, intertwining ancestry, memory, and critique of Indigenous erasure while confronting the mechanisms of digital colonialism. As a visual artist, curator, artivist, and vice-president of the Wyka Kwara association, Moara builds an insurgent practice that destabilizes Eurocentric canons and reclaims symbolic spaces, both physical and virtual, for the narratives of Indigenous peoples.
Cartographies of Memory and the Reaffirmation of Indigenous Being
Moara Tupinambá’s poetics are inscribed within a decolonial ethic, employing collage, photomontage, installation, and video as tools to map historical silences. Her project Museu da Silva (2020) functions as an affective archaeology, rescuing the memory of her paternal family from the Cucurunã community in the Lower Tapajós. By assembling photographs, audio recordings, and documents, she creates an installation that denounces the violence of colonization and reclaims the right to rewrite subjugated narratives. This “retaking”—a central concept in her work—goes beyond the personal: it is a collective act of healing that echoes Indigenous struggles for territorial demarcation and cultural recognition.
In the series Mirasawá (“people” in Nheengatu), Moara re-signifies colonial ethnographic images through analog and digital collages, replacing the historical objectification of Indigenous women with empowered representations. By recomposing photographs taken by European ethnologists with symbolic elements from Tupinambá culture, she subverts the colonial gaze, transforming records of epistemic violence into devices for self-esteem and identity affirmation. The circulation of these works in international exhibitions, such as the Sydney Biennale (2019) and the solo show Ressurgences of Amazon (2021, Austria), challenges traditional art history, which has confined Indigenous production to folkloric or exotic categories for decades.
Digital Colonialism and the Struggle for Autonomous Representation
If classical colonialism was consolidated through territorial plundering and cultural imposition, digital colonialism perpetuates these dynamics through the control of technological platforms, algorithms, and information flows. Domination is not only evident in the concentration of power by transnational corporations but also in the reproduction of stereotypes that diminish non-hegemonic cultures. By embracing digital tools, Moara Tupinambá engages in a battle to decolonize the virtual imaginary.
Her digital collages go beyond aesthetics: they are acts of insurgency against imposed invisibility. On platforms like Instagram—where algorithms often marginalize dissenting voices—the artist creates positive representations of Indigenous women, challenging the dominant visual monoculture. Her online presence, blending creative processes and discussions on Indigenous consciousness, turns social media into trenches of activism. This movement resonates with the ideas of decolonial theorists like Walter Mignolo, who advocate for alternative epistemologies in spaces traditionally controlled by the West.
At the same time, her explorations in animation and augmented reality indicate a critical appropriation of emerging technologies. Rather than merely reproducing the colonial logic of innovation detached from local contexts, Moara integrates these resources into Indigenous worldviews, weaving bridges between ancestry and the future.
Curating as a Decolonial Act and the Construction of Networks
Moara Tupinambá’s curatorial work amplifies her impact on the art scene. By prioritizing Indigenous narratives in exhibitions and collectives such as MAR (Women Artists of Pará) and Levante Tupinambá, she shifts the power axis away from traditional institutions, which remain anchored in Eurocentric perspectives. Her curatorship operates as a critical pedagogy, exposing the fissures in an art history that has systematically ignored—or exoticized—Indigenous production.
This approach resonates with the concept of glocalization, where the local and the global intertwine to amplify historically silenced voices. Awards such as the Instituto Tomie Ohtake Prize (2022) and her participation in the Exhibition Program of CCSP (2020) signal an ongoing—though gradual—shift in the inclusion of Indigenous epistemologies in the art circuit.
Conclusion: Art as Re-Existence in the Digital Age
Moara Tupinambá’s work reaffirms Indigenous resistance as a dynamic and forward-looking project. By re-signifying colonial archives, occupying digital platforms, and building collaborative networks, the artist transforms technology into a tool for healing, reclaiming art as an essential space for social transformation.