Kaya Agari

Mato Grosso, Brazil

An artist born in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, she dedicates her visual research to the graphic arts and material and immaterial ramifications of the culture of her people, the Kurâ-Bakairi. Ana Patricia Karuga Agari, known as Kaya, is a Nutrition student at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT) and an activist for indigenous rights. Among Agari’s main sources of inspiration are the graphic arts of her people. Body painting, called Kywenu, is taught by the elders: from women to girls and from men to boys. There are Kywenu exclusively for women, for men and for children. With a geometrical character, these drawings of shapes and lines, based on their differences between them, determine distinct social roles.

Agari is a co-organizer of the Yukamaniru Institute for Support of Kurâ-Bakairi Indigenous Women, created in 2008 to encourage the protagonism and social inclusion of these women. The institute organizes and implements actions to promote knowledge of the culture, drawings and body paintings of Kurâ-Bakairi women and youth. Agari, as a promoter of the safeguarding of this knowledge, organized the exhibition Kurâ.-Bakairi: Yakuigady and Kywenu in 2015 at the Mato Grosso Art Museum, in which she presented paintings produced by the women and children of the Bakairi village, as well as photographs, paintings and other objects produced by artists of this people. Kaya exhibited at the Mato Grosso Indigenous Book Fair (FLIMT) in 2010 and in 2013, she participated in the exhibition ¡Mira! Contemporary Visual Arts of Indigenous Peoples, at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), with tours to Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. In 2017, she joined the research group Visual Virtual, Kurâ_Bakairi initiative. In 2020, he participated in the group exhibition Véxoa: Nós Sabe, at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. In 2021, an unpublished work by Agari was among those selected for the reformulation of the Museum of Street Art, in São Paulo, curated by Hélio Menezes.