Worikg Kaingang: when the museum connects with memory

Abstract

Contemporary debates in the fields of museology, memory, and curatorial practice have underscored the urgency of decolonizing museums as a means of addressing the historical demands of postcolonial populations. This article seeks to analyze the Worikg Community Museum, of the Kaingang people, as a Project that challenges the paradigms of canonical museology, which has traditionally been structured around chronological, interpretative, and reductionist models that often disregard Indigenous realities and epistemologies.

The research focuses on the experience of the Kaingang people, specifically in the Indigenous Land Vanuíre, located in the state of São Paulo, examining the development of the Worikg Museum as a counter-hegemonic museological practice. The museum emerges as a space of resistance to the colonial legacy, particularly within the context of Brazilian museology, by adopting a distinct curatorial approach centered on the valorization of Indigenous memory and knowledge. Through the promotion of an anti-colonial discourse and the construction of a narrative rooted in the community itself, this study aims to contribute to the broader reflection on the importance of recognizing and learning from intra-community museological initiatives. Such experiences offer valuable pathways for confronting the modern-colonial ideological structures that continue to shape cultural institutions, proposing alternative frameworks that value and strengthen Indigenous identities.