A conversation with Keywa Henri

Anaïs Roesch: To begin with, could you tell us where you come from and what kind of environment you grew up in?

Keywa Henri: My heritage and identity are made up of many layers: historical, cultural and personal. I was born in ‘Guyana’ in 1993 to a Kalin'a Tɨlewuyu father and a Brazilian mother. On my mother’s side, my Indigenous grandfather, who faced dictatorial repression, took a vow of silence. On my father’s side, we are very proud to assert our identity, but in both cases we have experienced violence, both physical and symbolic, from a system that wants to erase us. In this context, how can we not lose sight of who we are, where we come from and what we stand for when the French Constitution does not even recognize us?

AR: You grew up in ‘French Guiana’ but studied art in Lyon. How did that work out for you?

KH: Yes, like all children from so-called ‘overseas territories’, I went to school in ‘French Guiana’ but had to leave for mainland France to continue my higher education because, until the 2000s, there was no university in ‘French Guiana’. I enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon because I was looking for a course that would give me some freedom. At the time, I was the only Indigenous student and the school was not designed for people like me. There was not a single black teacher, I couldn’t find any Indigenous references in the library… I had to look for examples elsewhere, in Brazil and Canada.

AR: Today, you define yourself as an artivist. How has your political stance evolved over the course of your career?

KH: When I started my studies, I didn’t want to highlight Indigenous issues because I didn’t want to participate in this folklorization, exploiting my uniqueness just to produce something. The art world is like the rest of the world: it infantilizes us.

But today, I fully embrace this position: being an Indigenous artist means speaking out in resistance. We are still too invisible; people are interested in us for what we have, but rarely for who we are.

AR: Ecology is present in your work, even if you don’t talk about it directly. Could you explain the link between this dimension and your commitment?

KH: For me, ecology is not a theme, it’s a way of being. In Kalin'a culture, we do not separate humans from the earth, nor the body from the land. We belong to a whole. When I talk about the destruction of forests, the disappearance of languages or poisoned rivers, I am not talking about ‘ecological’ politics, I am talking about my family, my home, what makes me who I am. I observe that today we talk a lot about ecology without ever really listening to the people who live these realities. The West wants to save the planet, but without us. Yet as the Indigenous Peoples' Climate Movement repeatedly affirms ‘we are the answer’!

AR: What changes would you like to see in this world?

KH: Today, from a societal point of view, we are accelerating our own collapse. But as Kalin'a Tɨlewuyu, the greater the threat, the greater our resistance. For me, art is a way of saying, ‘We are still here.’

We must reclaim the right to exist differently and refuse to be defined by the gaze of others. In this respect, the art world must also evolve; it cannot limit itself to exhibiting Indigenous artists but must also integrate them into its very functioning.

This interview was carried out within the framework of the Common Ground research programme by AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions.