For Claudia Andujar, photography is a way of communicating with the world, a medium through which one learns as much as one gives. Her works testify to the photographer's longstanding commitment to the commitment to the protection of the Yanomami, one of the largest indigenous communities in the communities in the Brazilian Amazon. Since the 1970s Andujar has lived with this community in the Amazon basin on several occasions. To this day, this region is constantly exploited for its mineral resources.
Claudia Andujar sees photography as an artistic and political tool. Her work is characterized by the strong sense of responsibility, with which the artist is involved in the Pro-Yanomami Commission (CCPY) for the protected areas along the Brazilian-Venezuelan border.
Claudia Andujar was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1931 and lives and works in São Paulo. After World War II, she immigrated to the United States and, in 1955, to Brazil. During the 1970s, Andujar received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and Fundação de Apoio a Pesquisa [FAPESP] to photograph and study the culture of the Yanomami people. From 1978 to 2000, she worked for the Pro-Yanomami Commission (CCPY) and coordinated the campaign for the demarcation of the Yanomami territory in the Amazon (TIY), created by the Brazilian government in 1992. In recognition of her work as an advocate of human rights, Andujar received the Annual Cultural Freedom Award from the Lannan Foundation, New Mexico, in 2000. In 2003, she received the Severo Gomes Award from the Teotônio Vilela Human Rights Commission, São Paulo, and in 2008 was honored by the Ministry of Culture of Brazil with the Order of Cultural Merit. In 2010 she received the Kassel Photobook Award for Marcados, published by Cosac Naify, and she was honored with the Goethe-Medaille in 2018. In 2015, the permanent pavilion Galeria Claudia Andujar opened at Instituto Inhotim in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, with three hundred works created by the artist about the Yanomami.
Curator: Viktor Hois
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