We live like trees inside the footsteps of our ancestors

We live like trees insinde the footsteps of our ancestors, explores a range of artistic practices from Latin America and conceptual frameworks engaging with ecological sen- sibilities, pedagogies, and knowledge systems that move away from Western-centered and colonial notions of nature. Adopting decolonial, ecocritical, and more-than-human approaches, this book weaves together historical and material conditions and environmental struggles, examining how these come to bear on contemporary Latin American artistic production. Linking neoliberal exploitative economies, extractive practices and the failures of colonial modernity, the publication aims to shed light on alternative ways of understanding nature and interspecies kinships, and to resurface other epistemologies, which critically reflect on the schism between nature and culture.

Featuring contributions by scholars, artists, and curators, the essays in We live like trees inside the footsteps of our ancestors offer radical visions of the environment, and hence alternative perceptions of the nature-human relationship, standing apart from traditional colonial thinking and challenging conventional ideologies of progress, landscape, and territorial ownership. Exploring the potential of different formats (practice reflective essays, conversations between artists and curators, and critical and scholarly essays), each piece reflects critically on the inextricable relationship between ecological crisis and colonization in the Global South.

Mariana Cunha is a researcher and educator, currently developing theoretical and practice-led research at the Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster, where she lectures in screen studies. Holding a PhD and MA in Cultural and Critical Studies from Birkbeck, University of London, she previously held two postdoctoral fellowships in Brazil. Her research explores ecology, spatial practices, affect, and moving images, with a focus on ecological aesthetics in contemporary global cinema and Latin American moving image-based art. Mariana has contributed as a film programmer in Brazil and the UK and co-curated the exhibition We Live Like Trees Inside the Footsteps of Our Ancestors (Blenheim Walk Gallery, 2023). She has published widely, co-editing Human Rights, Social Movements and Activism in Contemporary Latin American Cinema (2018) and Space and Subjectivity in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema (2017).

Marianna Tsionki is an art theorist, curator, and Associate Professor & University Curator at Leeds Arts University, overseeing curatorial programs, collections, and archives. She holds a PhD in Curatorial Studies (Manchester School of Art) and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory (Goldsmiths, University of London). Her research examines the role of curatorial and institutional practice in ecological crisis, focusing on decolonial eco-visualities, eco-feminist practices, and Indigenous Naturecultures. She has contributed essays to edited volumes, exhibition catalogs, and peer-reviewed journals and received numerous grants, including the AAMC Research Programme with Art Fund (2019). She has participated in the School of Common Knowledge by L’Internationale (2024) and the Anthropocene Campus Venice by the Max Planck Institute & HKW (2021).

This book is forthcoming in Spring 2025