Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919-1999) was an influential Quechua painter from Ecuador. Guayasamín used art to communicate the violence, oppression, and poverty of which he was witness. Guayasamín often depicts human figures. His work probably gained such a wide scope of recognition because it feels both highly personal and universal. It communicates universal human emotions of pain, grief, anger, and love — but also the unique conditions and experiences of indigenous Ecuadorians. His style is identified as a part of the Expressionist and Cubist movements.
Guayasamín was born in 1919 in Quito, Ecuador. His father was Quechua and his mother was Mestiza. He was the eldest of ten children. Guayasamín was interested in painting from a young age. He started to watercolor when he was 6 and shifting to oil when he was 10. “As he had already been expelled from six different schools for what his teachers considered a lack of academic talent, he enrolled in the School of Fine Arts [in 1932, at age 13] against his father’s wishes.”
His early was characterized by these artistic developments, and at the same time, it was marked by personal loss and political violence. Guayasamín’s mother died a premature death during his childhood years. Later, in 1932 (the same year he started art school) an armed conflict exploded between then president Neptalí Bonifaz Ascázubi’s far-right base and leftist paramilitary groups who sought to overthrow him. This coup sparked a four-day period of intense violence. During this time, Guayasamín witnessed a stray bullet hit and kill one of his best friends. This event would inspire the painting below, Los niños muertos (The dead children).

This painting was featured in Guayasamín’s “first exhibition in 1942 [which] stirred considerable controversy in the artistic community, as the majority of his works contained critical social and political undertones.”
Having graduated from The School of Fine Arts in 1940, Guayasamín’s career was already in full speed ahead. Soon after graduating, “Nelson Rockefeller visited Quito and was so impressed with Guayasamín’s art that he extended him an invitation to visit the United States, where the artist spent seven months visiting museums.” Soon thereafter, in 1943, Guayasamín traveled to Mexico where he met Diego Rivera and studied under José Clemente Orozco. As we can see, from the beginning of his artistic career, Guayasamín was recognized internationally for his talent, and through his travels gained a broadend international perspective. On his way back from Mexico to Ecuador, Guayasamín traveled through Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. The injustices that he witnessed during this tour inspired the first peiod of his artistic career, called Huacayñán (A Quechua word that roughly translates to “the trail of tears). It spanned from 1946 to 1953. The two paintings below were produced during this period of his artistic production, during which he created one mural and 103 pictures. He “depict[s] the misery and injustices suffered by racial and ethnic groups, particularly indigenous people, in Latin America. The works portray the cultures, feelings, traditions, identities and religions of these people and attempt to give them a voice.” The figure of Prisonero (1949) is fairly typical of the bodies that Oswaldo renders: thin, showing signs of poverty, with both the face and hands showing the anguish of the figure.

The next period of his artistic production is referred to as La edad de la ira, or The Age of Rage, which spanned roughly from 1953-1993.
The art that Guayasamín created during this middle period of his career was extremely politically and emotionally potent. He expressed his outrage and grief at many of the horrors of the 20th-century, such as the series of dictatorships that sprung forth in Latin America, the disappearings, the continued repression of indigenous peoples, the Vietnam War, and more.

Lágrimas de sangre (Tears of blood), 1973

For example, the image to the left, one of Guayasamín’s most famous, was painted in 1973 in direct response to the assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile. Guayasamín admired Allende greatly and dedicated this painting to Allende, and to “the theater director and musician Víctor Jara as well as Guayasamín’s close friend, the poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda.”
Guayasamín not only dedicated some of his paintings to specific political events and figures, but he also tried his hand at portraits. In 1996, he painted a portrait of Rigoberta Menchú, the famous K’iche’ activist from Guatemala.

Photo courtosy of Fundación Guayasamín, 1996.

The later period of Guayasamín’s career is called Ternura (Tenderness). Between the years of 1988 until 1999 when Guayasamín passed, he created about 100 paintings all belonging to this collection. These paintings were all dedicated to his deceased mother. Most of them depict a mother and child embracing. During these later years, Guayasamín shifted his focus, creating these more personal paintings. Like the paintings from earlier in his career, these paintings are centered around people and have his recognizable emotional potency. However, the emotions that Guayasamín conveys shift from angry outrage to a loving melancholy.

All paintings by Oswaldo Guayasamín, courtesy of Fundación Guayasamín.
Sources:
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/oswaldo-guayasamin-art/
https://as.vanderbilt.edu/clas-resources/media/Guayasamin.pdf
http://www.artnet.com/artists/oswaldo-guayasam%C3%ADn/
https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/oswaldo-guayasamin-art/
https://www.wikiart.org/en/oswaldo-guayasamin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian_Civil_War
https://www.capilladelhombre.com

As I class, we found different indigenous rights organizations working in Latin America today. Below, you can see a list of a couple indigenous rights organizations located in different Latin American countries. In addition to a description of the work the organization is doing and their mission, you can also find the link to their website and social media page.

Bolivia

Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia (CIDOB), or Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia

Website: http://www.apcbolivia.org/org/cidob.aspx
The Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia (CIDOB), or Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia was founded in 1982 and is an organization that represents 34 distinct lowland indigenous groups in Bolivia. The information about the confederation is APCBolivia, a “plurinational communications agency.” It is unclear to me whether APCBolivia is the larger non-governmental organization, and CIDOB is a chapter, or if CIDOB is its own organization. Regardless, according to the CIDOB website, at the structural level, the confederation seeks to foster unity and solidarity among indigenous peoples from different tribes, to preserve the independence of indigenous organizations from external interference, and to include indigenous women’s voices at every level of decision-making. The confederation, in how it relates to the state and the public at large, means to represent indigenous peoples and “search for their effective incorporation and participation in political, social, economic and cultural decisions” of Bolivia “in the areas of local, regional, national and international development.”
The organization’s website details its specific strategies of how it promotes these goals — since its strategies and functions are various and specific, I have not listed all of them here, but there is a subsection of the site where you can find these details. As we have studied the history of indigenous peoples in Bolivia, it may be evident why such an organization needs to exist — there needs to be economic uplift, recognition of sovereignty and land, etc.

Chile

Colectivo de Comunicación Mapuche, or the Mapuche Communication Collective

Website: http://www.mapuexpress.org/?page_id=2056
Colectivo de Comunicación Mapuche, Mapuche communication collective
This organization works definitively apart from the Chilean government in the region of La Araucanía where the majority of the Mapuche people live. Their main purpose is as a multi-platform news source to generate indigenous consciousness throughout the region and country. Running stories in both Spanish and mapudungun, the Mapuche language spoken by over 260,000 people, the organization creates a well informed network of activists to mobilize for the Mapuche community. Their goals are explicitly stated as anti capitalist and autonomist.

Comunidades Mapuche en Conflicto Arauco – Malleco (also known as CAM)

Website: https://www.nodo50.org/weftun/
The Comunidades Mapuche en Conflicto Arauco – Malleco (also known as CAM) is an organization of Mapuche people in Central and Southern Chile. Unlike other areas of South America, the colonization of Southern Chile was slow and more about claiming land from Argentina than from the indigenous peoples. By the time colonizers arrived in Mapuche territory in the mid 1800s, they were organized and prepared to fight. The Mapuche have continued to fight since the beginning, and never recognized the Chilean state’s authority over them, refusing the identity of “Chilean” entirely. However, the chilean state has continued to encroach on Mapuche lands. As a result of the Pinochet regime, chile has a neoliberal government system, and the government will continually sell Mapuche lands to private companies. These companies force Mapuche off their land by replanting native forests with monocultures of Pine and Eucalyptus, which destroy soils such that traditional agriculture cannot take place. CAM, under the direction of Héctor Llaitul and Ramon Llanquileo, two inimitable Mapuche organizers, has been fighting back against this environmental siege by setting fire to monoculture forests and replanting traditional farms. Although it does appear to be a powerful and unified campaign, their lack of public materials indicated that they have given up on obtaining their rights through the Chilean bureaucracy.

Colombia

The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia or ONIC)

Website: https://www.onic.org.co/
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia or ONIC) is an organization network for the indigenous communities of Colombia to organize and demand their political rights. As a result of their composition, the participants are representatives from various nations in Colombia and, although they recognize all the people’s different languages, all their materials are in Spanish. This group has been active in Colombia since the 1970s. The biggest threats to these organizations are the different violent actors that target them in the country, and the strong neoliberal system in place in Colombia that encourages the construction of megaprojects that endanger many of these communities. This is especially challenging in Colombia where the state’s development project align with the interests of right wing militias in the country and as a result of this deadly alliance you’ll have a case such as the current construction of Hidroituango, a major development project over mass graves of the victims of paramilitary groups.

Ecuador

Ecuador Runakunapak Rikcharimuy, or the Movement of the Indigenous People in Ecuador

Website: http://www.ecuarunari.org.ec/
The Kichwa name for this Indigenous Rights organization in Ecuador is Ecuador Runakunapak Rikcharimuy and it translates to “Movement of the Indigenous People in Ecuador” but also known as the Confederacion Kichwa del Ecuador–Ecuarunari. They are a fairly new founded organization with their founding date being 1972. The current president of the org (2016-2019) is Carlos Perez G and Kanari del Azuay. They represent politically 12 ethnic groups of the Ecuador region. In addition, it is a registered member of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Andes (CAOI).
List of what they want:

Improve the living conditions of the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador and plan to do so through improvement of education, health, housing, and food security.
Seek broad, democratic, equitable and conscious participation of the affiliated organizations of the Ecuarunari in the effort to ascertain the social, cultural, scientific, technological and economic development of its members.

On their website their mission statement is:
“We have built a past, we are in a present [sic], and want to continue with the future, strengthening the processes of organizational structures, and generating new expectations, such as the participation of children, young people; also, spaces for debate, gatherings of music, of peoples, to maintain life. Form new cadres, leaders and never let our organization end, but continue with the historical process.”

La Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA) or The Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA)

Website: http://coica.org.ec/historia/
La Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA) or The Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) is an indigenous organization of international convergence that focuses its efforts on the promotion, protection and security of Indigenous peoples through the defense of their ways of life, principles and social, spiritual and cultural values. COICA was born on March 14, 1984 in the city of Lima-Peru, during the First Congress of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, in which participated: AIDESEP, Peru; CONFENIAE, Ecuador; CIDOB, Bolivia; ONIC, Colombia; and UNI, Brazil. Within this bigger organization, AIDESEP is more specific to the region of Peru. Some of their projects include: supporting infrastructure projects, mining, and projects by the National Bank in the Brazil Amazon, conserving biodiversity and ecosystem function in the Amazon, implement programs to mitigate emissions from forestry practices, and recognition and response to growing forest loss in the Amazon.
Primary focuses of the organization include: sustainable living, land and natural resources, their own legal systems, strengthening ancestral wisdom, economic development, and systems of communication and access to technology.

French Guiana

FOAG (Federation of Amerindian Organizations of Guiana)

Website: http://foag.over-blog.com

The FOAG (Federation of Amerindian Organizations of Guiana) aims to represent the interests of the indigenous people of French Guiana at a regional, national, and international level. French Guiana is the second-largest region of France, and due to its status as a French Territorial Collectivity it is often ignored by NGOs — as France doesn’t need aid from them. Around 9.000 indigenous persons live in Guiana (5% of the global population), among six different ethnics — the Kali’na, the Arawak, the Palikur, the Teko, the Wayāpi, and the Wayana. The FOAG defends the interests of every one of them, and its members are all native to these ethnics. The FOAG cooperates with the COICA (Confederation of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazonian Basin) to fight for indigenous rights and to promote indigenous cultures and languages in Amazonia. It is interesting to notice that all their materials are in French though. In Guiana, the FOAG fights to promote self-development and self-governance of indigenous people. The actions of the organization are mainly informative, as they spread news via their blog. Nevertheless, they regularly address officials and representatives of the government. Recently, the FOAG opposed the “Montagne d’Or” (Golden Mountain) project, a project of the exploitation of a gold mine in the North of Guiana that would have a disastrous impact on the environment.

Guatemala

The National Coordination of Widows of Guatemala (la Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala: CONAVIGUA)

Website: http://conavigua.tripod.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Conavigua-Guatemala-457506251121355/
The major participants of this group are Guatemalan women whose husbands were killed in the Guatemalan Civil War. The objectives of this group include food, peace, equal education, protection for widows and mothers, protection for indigenous women, socioeconomic equality, and equal rights for indigenous communities. The group also seeks integration to la Unidad de Acción Sindical y Popular (UASP), a major union organization in Guatemala. CONAVIGUA, as well as the community the organization represents, faces some serious threats, in addition to the factors that led to the creation of the group in the first place. According to the website, members of CONAVIGUA have been threatened with violence by government soldiers for speaking out.

Mexico

The Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magon,” also known as CIPO-RFM

Websites:
https://intercontinentalcry.org/a-look-at-the-cipo-rfm/
http://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Popular_Indigenous_Council_of_Oaxaca_%22Ricardo_Flores_Magón%22.html
https://www.nodo50.org/cipo/
The Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magon,” also known as CIPO-RFM, is a grassroots rights organization mostly comprised of 2,000 rural indigenous activists in Oaxaca, Mexico. Their goals include, but are not limited to, promote and defend their human and cultural rights as individuals through non-violent community-based actions for environmental conservation and basic human necessities.

Peru

Matsés Movement

Website: http://www.matses.org/
Matsés Movement promotes tribal subsistence and economic stability for tribes in the amazon, specifically Matsés communities. The board of the NGO is entirely run by indigenous leadership. They are located in Peru, and one of the issues they are combating is that the Peruvian government gave rights to search for oil on their land to a Canadian oil company. They view this as a threat to their community’s livelihood. Further, they call attention to how government aid and infrastructure does not extend into their region, which increases the poverty of the people. They note on their website that the only government presence are teachers whose salaries are paid by the Ministry of Education. In addition to raising awareness about the encroachment on their land, this movement also wants to improve the quality of schools and living situation in this region. The major participants seem to be elected members from different Matsés communities. They speak their native language, but their website did mention that the government does support teachers giving a bilingual education. The website is primarily in English, but they do have the option on some pages to translate it into Matsés and Spanish.

The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest(La Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana or AIDESEP)

Website: http://www.aidesep.org.pe
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs8G_cAIVzIPqyrC7tK_qig
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aidesep_org?lang=es
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aidesep/
The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest(La Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana or AIDESEP) is an organization that advocates for the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon. Their mission includes claiming the territorial integrity of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, establishing and strengthening indigenous self-governance, and further developing their indigenous economy—just to name a few. Some of their goals include solving socio-environmental conflicts, promoting indigenous women and youth, and intercultural education and healthcare. The AIDESEP has a Board of Directors, that consists of six members, each of which comes from different villages across Peru. The organization is made up of 64 indigenous groups, and despite the differing languages they may have, the website is run primarily in Spanish. Their major political struggle, or at least what they are continuously demanding from their government, is to not only receive their rights (land, bicultural education, etc.) but to be able to conserve and maintain them. The AIDESEP has a Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and further publications like pictures, videos, and articles on their website to increase their outreach in social media.

Chaikuni Institute

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/institutochaikuni
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Chaikuni
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/institutochaikuni/
The Chaikuni Institute is a grassroots collective which works for a truly sustainable future for the Peruvian Amazon. The organization is located in Iquitos, Peru and according to their website they “investigate, promote, and protect” a form of life known as sumak kawsay. Sumak Kawsay translates to a “good living” in harmony with one’s communities, oneself, and most importantly, our living, breathing environment. The organization works with indigenous people in the following three operational branches: Intercultural Education, Permaculture, and Human and Nature Rights.
In terms of language, the non-profit organization predominantly uses Spanish and Quechua. This is interesting because the leadership of the organization does not consist of many indigenous people. The majority consists of immigrants from different countries such as Spain, Norway, and different African nations. In addition to the indigenous people within the organization, every member of the administration feels strongly about working to preserve the Amazonian environment. There are various threats to the ecology of the Amazon. The organization aims to overcome the ecological devastation, poverty, corruption, and cultural homogenization caused by modernization, globalization, and extractive industries.

“Casa Trans Zuleymi”

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/ZULEYMITRANS/events/?ref=page_internal
Website: https://hovupipumu.jimdo.com/casa-trans-zuleymi/
Article: http://agenciapresentes.org/2017/10/23/asi-funciona-la-primera-casa-trans-peru/
A refuge home for transgender women in Peru. It is a resource center situated in Lima, that helps trans-feminine people with STI(STD) testing, DIN registration (Identification), housing, education, and mental support. They also offer assistance in filing cases of domestic abuse, discrimination, etc. In a news story about Casa Trans, it was stated that “Many of them are migrants from the jungle of Peru,” which I am assuming to mean that there must be indigenous peoples being helped too. There are awareness videos on their Facebook and they receive funding from a nonprofit based in the US.

Tag: Ecuador

Oswaldo Guayasamín

Indigenous Rights Organizations Working in Latin America Today