Genocídio do Yanomami
Claudia Andujar
Void
English and Portuguese
Hardcover
Edition of 750
176 pages
275 × 185 mm
2025
ISBN 9786185479473
Andujar’s work ‘Yanomami Genocide: Death of Brazil’ was first presented in April 1989 at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) as an installation with colour slides projected onto plastic screens and mirrors. The photographs were originally black and white, and the artist’s re-illumination of the images reshaped their meaning, instilling urgency for that moment and the years that followed. Andujar’s aim was to raise awareness of the situation faced by the Yanomami, who at the time suffered from disease brought to their land by illegal gold miners. In this new book, Andujar has again recontextualised the images, bringing them into the present and reshaping their meaning for dissemination to a contemporary audience, as the Yanomami remain in peril.
The photographs in the book show both the Yanomami and the landscape they inhabit. They were created with a variety of experimental techniques to visually represent the shamanic culture. They are often high contrast with dramatic light and shadow, distorted, cropped, imbued with a sense of movement, menace, and the otherworldly. The images of people focus on fragments of bodies or close-cropped portraits, hinting at intimacy and the psychological.
(Source: https://void.photo/genocidio-do-yanomami)
About the Artist
Claudia Andujar is a Brazilian photographer and photojournalist of Swiss and Hungarian origin. After spending her childhood in Transylvania, Andujar fled with her mother to Switzerland during the Second World War to escape Nazi persecution in Eastern Europe. Her father was a Hungarian Jew who was deported to Dachau, where he was exterminated, along with most of the members of her family. After the war, Andujar immigrated to the United States, then settled permanently in Brazil in 1955, where she began her career as a photojournalist. She first encountered the Yanomami, an indigenous people, in 1971 when she was doing a reportage on the Amazon for the magazine Realidade.
Fascinated, she began an in-depth photographic project on the world of the Yanomami, sponsored by a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation. Her approach was notably different from the documentary style of her contemporaries. For instance, she experimented with a variety of techniques in order to convey what she could perceive of the shamanic experience. She also did a number of black-and-white portraits. At the same time, and in order to better understand their culture, she offered the Yanomami the opportunity to represent their metaphysical universe themselves, furnishing them with paper, pens and felt-tips.
(Source: https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/collection/artists/claudia-andujar)
About the Publisher
Void is an independent publishing house dedicated to photography books and education. The project is driven by its founders Myrto Steirou and João Linneu. You might bump into Myrto, Void’s editor, at a book fair or festival in a far flung part of the globe, but you’ll usually find her in Greece, at their store in Athens. João, Void’s designer, is based in Reykjavík… it’s entirely possible that you may not meet him (in person at least). Void works with both established and up-and-coming artists, proudly fostering photographers’ debut books.
Void has collaborated with many international art institutions since we started, back in October 2016. In 2021 Void became one of Futures Photography’s members. Void is devoted to and passionate about the projects they undertake. In their books, you will find powerful stories and innovative design, melded together with fine and experimental material.
void.photo
(Source: https://void.photo/contact)
