Wayamou: Common Tongues

Opening Museo Tamayo’s 2026 programme with, this two-person exhibition features works by Laura Anderson Barbata and Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe. Bringing together two artists who share a deep interest in spirituality, cosmogony, and nature, the exhibition foregrounds the exchange of knowledge as an essential practice for coexisting in the world.

The project traces back to a formative encounter in the Venezuelan Amazon, where Anderson Barbata shared papermaking techniques with local communities, inspiring Hakihiiwe to become an artist. Their collaboration led to Yanomami Owë Mamotima, a project enabling Yanomami communities to tell their own histories through artisanal books such as “Shapono” (1996).

Bringing together sculpture, drawing, books, and performance, the exhibition reflects both artists’ long-term engagement with reciprocity, collective memory, and ancestral knowledge. In the Yanomami language, wayamou refers to a ceremonial dialogue that sustains peace – an idea that frames this exhibition as an act of shared memory and resistance in the face of ecological and cultural crisis.