Laura Anderson Barbata
Rainforest Paper Project, Yanomami Owë Mamotima, 1992-ongoing
The Yanomami Paper Project is an ongoing initiative, working with the Yanomami community living in the Venezuelan Amazon Rainforest. This project was developed directly with the community, and holistically addresses several needs at once: the need for the Yanomami to document their own history, their need of an ecological method of recycling obsolete textbooks and other paper refuse, and the need to create a new means of revenue without disturbing their cultural and ecological environment. In 2000 the first book produced by this project received the award of Best Book of the Year from the Centro Nacional del Libro of Venezuela. This book is now part of collections both private and public, including the Cotsen Library Collection of Princeton University, the Gimbel Library of Parsons School of Design in New York, and the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library. In 2002 the project received the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Grant. In 2004, the project was a guest of honor at the XI Feria Internacional del Libro, Caracas, Venezuela. The Rainforest Paper Project was initially a sponsored project of the New York Foundation of the Arts, a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization.
Project description courtesy of the artist
Laura Anderson Barbata, Rainforest Paper Project, Yanomami Owë Mamotima, 1992-ongoing. Loose-leaf binder of handmade paper made from fibers indigenous to the Amazon region, with notes and photographs by the artist, 11.5 x 11 x 2.75 inches. Images courtesy of Dieu Donné.
About the Artist
Laura Anderson Barbata (b. 1958, Mexico City, Mexico) is a transdisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn and Mexico City. Since 1992 she has worked primarily in the social realm, and has initiated projects in the Venezuelan Amazon, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and the United States. Among them is her ongoing project The Repatriation of Julia Pastrana, begun in 2005, which resulted in the removal of Pastrana’s body from the Schreiner Collection in Oslo and its successful repatriation and burial in Sinaloa, Mexico, Pastrana’s birth state. The project continues with upcoming publications, zines, exhibitions and performances.
Barbata is also known for her project Transcommunality (2001–ongoing), working with stilt walkers, artists and artisans from Mexico, New York, and the Caribbean. This project has been presented at various museums, schools, and other venues as exhibitions and ̈Interventions ̈, among them the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; BRIC Arts | Media House, Brooklyn; Rutgers University; United Nations Plaza, New York; University of Wisconsin, Madison; Museo Textil de Oaxaca, México; Museo de la Ciudad de México; MUCA Roma, UNAM, Mexico City; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans.
Her work is in various private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; el Museo de Arte Moderno, México D.F.; Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany; Fundación Cisneros; Museo Carrillo
Gil, México; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Museum of Latin American Art MOLAA, Long Beach; USC Fisher Museum of Art; Museo de Arte de Lima; Museo Jaureguía, Navarra, Spain and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, among others
Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Sculpture Today (Phaidon Press), Kunstforum Germany, ARTnews, Art in America, ArtNexus, and 160 Años de Fotografía en México (INBA).
Barbata is a recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center artist in residence, 2019; the Anonymous Was a Woman 2016 Award; Defense of Human Rights Award 2017 from the Instituto de Administración Pública de Tabasco, México; Honorary Fellow of LACIS (the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Program), University of Wisconsin, Madison; Fellow of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary TBA21 Academy; Miembro del Sistema Nacional de Creadores, México (2014-2017) and professor at the Escuela Nacional de Escultura, Pintura y Grabado La Esmeralda of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes from 2010 until 2015.
Artist bio courtesy of the artist