6: Matteo Norzi on his work with the Shipibo-Conibo tribe, and the unimaginable journey of creating Icaros: A Vision

Support the Shipibo Guardia Indigenous via the GoFundMe campaign
Matteo co-founded and is executive director of the Shipibo Conibo Center

Wrote & co-directed Icaros: A Vision with Leonor Caraballo
Abou Farman Producer

Featuring:
Ana Cecilia Stieglitz as Pasajera Angelina
Arturo Izquierdo
Filippo Timi

For more information on:
Shipibo art
Icaros
Sara Flores – whose is first solo show is at White Cube in London on November 26

United Nations Permanent Forum
Daniel Pinchbeck – Breaking Open The Head
Listen to Jerónimo Mazarrasa –  on the use of Ayahuasca outside the countries of origin here
Permaculture – Terra Viva Ibiza

Giancarlo 

Hello. Welcome to the fifth episode of the mangu.tv podcast. Today, I’m proud to have Matteo Norzi. Matteo is an artist, designer, filmmaker, and indigenous rights activist. His explorative artistic practice took him through several extensive journeys along six continents. His art has been supported by important and prestigious institutions. His critically acclaimed directorial debut, the feature film Icaros: A Vision, co-directed with Leonor Caraballo premiered in competition at the 2016 Tribeca film festival. Bringing with him years of personal experience and extensive research on Amazonian history and culture. Matteo is co-founder and currently serves as the executive director of the Shipibo Conibo Center.

Welcome, Matteo. 

Matteo

Ciao Giancarlo

Giancarlo

So let’s jump straight in about Icaros: A Vision, give us a little bit of background. How did the movie come about? Etc.

Matteo

Look, Icaros: A Vision is a big piece of my life, and the life of some friends of mine, in particular Leonor Caraballo and Abou Farman. The film was started due to personal experience in the Peruvian Amazon. Leonor asked me to go with her to drink ayahuasca. And during the very first, two weeks, we decided we are going to leave everything that we were doing at the time and start working on the idea of the film. So that took us into a long journey, all the way to the border between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead.

Giancarlo

A little bit about the situation with Leonor. I hope that whoever’s listening to us for the segment has watched the documentary. So tell us a little bit about the situation with your co-director. 

Matteo

My co-director Leonor, like myself, was an artist from Argentina. I’m Italian, and we were both trying to make it in New York with the impression of chasing the rabbit and we were never going to catch it. So we got a bit unsettled with our life and we went to Peru to do ayahuasca. So, in the beginning, was that, and during one of the first ayahuasca experiences, Leonor had a vision of her dying. And after that, she came back to New York and did some tests and exams and basically previous cancer that she had of the breast, had spread throughout the body.

So as I was saying before, we were committed to starting working on the production of the film. And all of a sudden we had very little time left. So Icaros: A Vision became a piece of work like there was no tomorrow because there was no tomorrow. So we started selling properties and putting all our money and everything all our time into writing the film first and then shooting.

Giancarlo

So obviously the lady in the movie who has breast cancer was inspired by the situation. 

Matteo

Yeah, our main character is called Pasajera Angelina. Angelina is named after Angelina Jolie because at the same time that Leo had to do a double mastectomy to get rid of her risks for cancer to come back. And everybody was telling her that she was crazy. Angelina Jolie went public that she was doing the same operation. And so we decided to honor this going out with her position so we called the character Angelina. 

Giancarlo

Wow, I imagine, I know a little bit how difficult and what kind of pressure filmmakers have to finish a movie on time, and then being on budget and having this extra deadline must have been quite stressful. 

Matteo

Yeah. The shoot in the Amazon was crazy, just because of the environment, and the difficulties of bringing about to production in the very location in which Fitzcarraldo was shot. But the fact that there was a very high stake with Leonor, being in that situation, with pain at the end of the shooting day, gave the courage to everybody to push through the production. Also thanks to the great talent and courage of our producer  Abou Farman. We were able to pull it off. 

Giancarlo

Yes. Amazing. And also for Abou, he was romantically linked with the director. So it was quite an emotionally heavy situation. So tell us a little bit about how you felt about shooting with the Shipibo people and maybe also for our listeners, give us a little bit of context. Who are they? Who is this tribe? And now it’s becoming so well-known?

Matteo

So the Shipibo are the second biggest indigenous group of Peru. So there are groups, some of their cousins also in Colombia and in Brazil. It’s a large group who has a long history, you know, formerly they were matriarchal societies. And that kind way of living that challenges the patriarchal model is what was so attractive to us. Shipibo women are the ones who holds knowledge in terms of plants and shamanic practices. Our friendship with them started from day one and we started collaborating as an artist with these other incredible artists.

I like to say that as we were trying to direct the non-actor, the Shipibo on set, they were directing ourselves during the ceremony.

Giancarlo

Incredible, incredible. And the title Icaros: A Vision, Icaros are those songs that the indigenous sing, tell us a little bit. 

Matteo

Yeah, the very reason why we went to that location to shoot the film, is because we had listened to Icaros this song, and we followed the music all the way to the source. So it’s a very particular kind of chant that it’s said to be learned from the plant spirit. And the film follows these ideas of synesthetic construction. So the soundtrack of the film in theory is the one that preceded the visionary aspect, that visual, in every single phase of the production. In the edit in particular, our goal was to be able to have a self-standing ceremony in the form of a soundtrack prior to being able to edit the images into something that makes sense. 

Giancarlo

Wow, so the sound is also reflected in that calligraphy that we see in the documentary.

Matteo

Yes. So the Icaros are technologists. That’s another big goal of the film is proving that ayahuasca and these chants are like cinema and video games and other vision making devices are on the same level, as technology to generate different ways of seeing. So the content part of the Icaros is called canar. It is a very particular kind of abstract painting that generates itself in a fractal way. So it has mathematical attributes and geometrical attributes as well. Its kind of like a spirit is kind of like a colony of some sort of fungus that needs to spread over the surface of the design field.

Giancarlo

So when you see these beautiful Shipibo painting fabrics with that calligraphy, it’s like an alphabet. 

Matteo

Yeah. It’s like a language. It doesn’t go all the way to becoming a language made up of words and letters. But it’s nevertheless kind of like the operating system of consciousness at some level. So it’s kind of like even if you do not understand what the designs mean in terms of a translation, they can have an effect on you.

So the Shipibo believe that some illnesses are caused by patterns that have lost their order. So the work of the chairman is to unravel those and replace them with orderly ones.

Giancarlo

So since you mentioned the word consciousness, this is a big topic for contemporary physicists, and quantum mechanics, and theologies, then they call it the hard problem in science. This idea is that consciousness, just a phenomenon of the brain, or is it something cosmic that comes from, we are nowhere, What, what’s your view on that? 

Matteo

Look, I’m going to tell you what the Shipibo told me because they have a very clear view about this. It’s what I call a spiritual understanding of ecology or a spiritual understanding of cosmology. There is a word in Shipibo, which is called caños, which means basically intention, but also it’s used to express the concept of force in terms of, a force of physics. It’s the place of the river in which the current is the strongest. So it is the direction in which the plant is trying to grow the roots. Basically, by using the same concept to describe gravity, for example, the attraction between two planets, and the attraction between two people that fall in love with one another, or like the attraction of somebody who wants to, the urge to that somebody has to rebel against the oppressive system.

Using the same word, they extend their consciousness to everything they see. So the force of gravity has an intention, therefore, has personhood, the river has a direction, and therefore has personhood. And, and this is an important concept because recognizing the right to personhood, two natural elements is one of the best venues to protect the environment around us.

Giancarlo

So you use the word personhood as synonymous of consciousness.

Matteo

Yeah. In that sense that I do. So the Shipibo believe that they call these anthropologists, called the idea of Amazonian perspectivism, they believe that even the birds see themselves as humans do, they just have a different disguise that they wear. But every single element of nature, whether it is plant, animal, or a river, or mineral, each one of these is made of the same share the spiritual matter. And then there are hirachist so some are more powerful than others, but the spiritual matter is shared throughout the universe.

Giancarlo

Interesting. It’s like the Animism religion. 

Matteo

Yeah, exactly exactly. It is definitely despite 500 years of Christianity and stigmatization. Shipibo Animism survived. That’s why I think the Shipibo are so interesting. And that’s why I also think that knowledge could be of great help to the indigenous movements throughout the world.

Giancarlo

Because today, more than ever we need to find an understanding of our connection with nature that changes the relationship from an extractive to a more regenerative principle. 

Matteo

Correct. Look, I grew up a monotheist with a Jewish father and a Christian mother, but you know, the dogma of one, God was never possible in my childhood. And then the first day I drank ayahuasca, I realized that, yeah, maybe there is a God stronger than everybody else, but the idea there is only one is a straight-up lie. Spirituality is made up of multiplicity by definition. So I think an approach that recognizes men as part of nature instead of men with right over nature is the very good first step towards the healing of the environment in this moment of climate catastrophes.

Giancarlo

And also understanding that there is an intelligence which cannot be, in a way outsmarted, the way materialist scientists, scientific materialist approach, try sometimes to shortcut nature in some sort of linear solution, like a pesticide or fertilizer, or I think about this idea that to expand production with monoculture, it just doesn’t work because monoculture is not part of nature. So you create these incredible vast monoculture crops that then are not natural can not take care of themselves, and then you need the pesticide and then you deplete the microorganism, which then depletes the nutritional, values that then deplete the microbiota, that then deplete the immune system, and then we have a chronic disease epidemic in the world. 

Matteo

Yeah. I’m totally with you on that and I think the critique of reductionism here is the most relevant of all because by embracing a view of the world that tries to cope with complexity instead of breaking it down into parts. I think it’s the only way forward at this moment. So that’s why I talk about the content profanity of indigenous wisdom. So I don’t look towards the past, I’m looking forward to the future and how, for example, these indigenous understanding of ecology that gives personhood to all these different things, how that can inform, for example, the artificial intelligence systems that are gonna try to cope with geoengineering to save the world from a very fast catastrophe. 

Giancarlo

Can you elaborate on that? That was a little bit of a complicated concept. 

Matteo

So basically, you know, many people now say that we already passed the situation of not going back with the changes that we…

Giancarlo

The point of no return.

Matteo

Yeah. The point of no return. And one of the solutions that the people who believe in technology embrace is called geoengineering means trying to manage macroecological systems. Like the of a continental-size in order to be able to correct things like the stream of the Mexico Golf that warms up Europe, this l macro phenomenon of the earth. So I didn’t know if that was ever going to be possible, but what I do know is that it won’t be possible if these complexities are operated with a capitalistic mind view. Instead, if they are informed of the concept of reciprocity and kinship protocols that extend to also animal, plant, and water, for example, I think we might have a framework.

To change the direction we are heading to. That’s why I call these an AI Sharman, so I buy the same work that can be done to heal ourselves from traumas and addictions and, whatever you can use ayahuasca to heal yourself. I think this can be scaled up and indigenous lifeways adapted to contemporary time. They can probably have an impact on how the world is gonna look in the next, years and centuries.

Giancarlo

It’s very interesting. And it’s such a pity that we keep on hearing about the destruction of their habitat and maybe at the end towards the concluding remark. We’re gonna ask for help. I know you’re doing a fundraising campaign because deforestation continues.

Matteo

Yeah. I want to say something because it continues the parallel between personal healing and ecological healing. Now the first driver of the forestation in the Peruvian, Amazon is cocaine. So, and how many of us used ayahuasca to try to cut the addiction to cocaine? So I think once again, we see that there is mirroring at different levels of existence.

Giancarlo

I promised we would talk about the documentary, but then we ended up in system theory quite fast. Let’s maybe go back to the movie experience. How was writing the script? How was the other character like the Italian actor with the speaking impairment? How, how were those characters? Inspired by

Matteo

So, first of all, I want to say that the film is not strictly a documentary, but it is a document. It is a document about a moment in time in which many people started going to the Amazon to find healing with ayahuasca and plant medicine in general. So the project of the film started in 2011, you guys interviewed Daniel Pinchbeck before. Who probably is one of those who captured that moment before anybody else.

Giancarlo

With his book, Breaking Open The Head. 

Matteo

Exactly. And also with 2012, bringing attention to indigenous prophecies and different ways of finding healing, and different ways of judging shamanic practices. We were exactly in that moment when we started with the film and then in time became something in which now I lose awareness because the work on the film never stopped from the writing was us traveling to the Amazon, So the film was written in hotels and lodges in the Amazon until when it was written in the waiting room of the hospital because the condition of my co-director and co-writer changed so much that she could no longer easily travel.

But even the drama of the tragedy of having the inevitability of a disease that is taking over you, we decided to use that in a creative way. So we kind of like incorporating those are the moments of reality in the characters. So each one of the characters, to go back to your question, each one of the characters is actually playing himself or herself. The shamans are all shamans, the wife of the young Sharman, is really his wife, and the daughter is really his daughter, and Filippo Timi, the Italian actor with a speech impediment really had a speech impediment that compromised, or at least affected part of his career as an actor.

And so he joined the production, yes to play a role, but also with the hope of solving the issue. 

Giancarlo

So he was drinking ayahuasca for real?

Matteo

Yeah, all the actors were actually invited (not forced) to drink ayahuasca for real in front of the camera. Most of the footage in which they are really under the effect of ayahuasca we did not use in the final cut of the scene, but the soundscape and the sound of the ceremonies, and the rumors of people throwing up and crying. Those are actually. It’s completely capturing the reality of the moment of the experience of the actors in the malloc.

Giancarlo

Wow, wow, and what about Arturo, losing sight? That was also true.

Matteo

Arturo had an eye problem that was solved. So he’s not blind now, so that was a little push to have a stronger storyline for him. But what is true, is that by taking Arturo to the eye doctor during our very first week in the Amazon. We opened a channel of communication, we took him to the eye doctor to check his eyes because he really had bad conjunctivitis. And then he opened the door for special care in the and also took us then to his community and so we were able to follow him home and understand more about the lifeway of his people.

Giancarlo

Amazing. All the conceptual artistic effects, there seems, if I remember correctly, were like body parts pulsating and breathing. Like an x-ray that reminded me of choreography. There was the labyrinth, it was incredible. So that was inspired by your background as an artist. 

Matteo

Yeah. Everybody from the producer to the directors, everybody had a past career in contemporary art. This film really signified also a way to free ourselves from the bonds of the space of the gallery, and the frustration of never being able to really, to come on top of the pyramid of the art world.

But going back to those images, those are also the real MRIs of Leo, detecting her own cancer. And I was trying to say as the cancer was emerging in her bones, she was the kind of person who was already thinking about how to make an animation with those. It was a way instead of waiting for her fate to come and take her away, she took every single moment of the experience to create.

And that’s why also the work that we are doing now, as an indigenous rights activist, after the film, is an afterlife project, because we are trying to continue the collaboration and continue the collaboration in the spirit of not worrying too much about one self, but in the spirit of giving everything that we can to heal others in this case, indigenous people.

Giancarlo

Amazing. Amazing. I strongly recommend watching this film. For those of us who drank ayahuasca a lot, will really have an activation with the music and the image, you feel the activation for those that didn’t try, they will enjoy it anyway. You can find it on mangu.tv the movie. Thank you Matteo for discussing the film with us.

Matteo

Thank you, Giancarlo,  I wish this was in Italian, but we are here speaking in English. I apologize for my bad accent. 

Giancarlo

Your Italian accent is nothing to apologize for my Italian accent. I think it’s a plus. Okay. So moving on to another part of your life, which I find extremely interesting is, you are the Shipibo ambassador in America, or in the world. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Matteo

So again, after making the film we realized that even a film is a form of extractive. We went there, we took the images and we brought them to the world. And then at the moment of the opening night at the Tribeca film festival in 2016, we realized that the United States of America was not too willing to grant visas to our actors to join the celebration. That is just an example of a larger issue of a very unbalanced relationship that spiritual tourism is imposing over the indigenous population. For example, nowadays shamans make so much more money healing the foreigners that they don’t have any longer time to serve their communities and therefore the communities are left without health care providers, just to make an example. So we decided back then to continue our work in this field by establishing a nonprofit organization that is called the Shipibo Conibo Center center and its headquarters in Harlem, West Harlem here in New York and serves as an indigenous nations ambassador like you were saying. So we do host the indigenous artists, activists, and healers when they need to come to New York for the United Nations Permanent Forum or for international events. 

But then most of our work takes place in the Amazon. In the Amazon, we are trying to pilot a way of doing conservation and fighting deforestation by empowering indigenous people and their representative organizations. It’s been shown by plenty of studies that the indigenous lands have the lowest level of deforestation, even compared to national parks and private sanctuaries. It’s easy to see on the map, whatever there is green on your planet on Google earth. That’s probably where indigenous people are. So now we are trying to basically empower the representative organizations of the Shipibo people, towards taking over the responsibility of conservation or of their territory. 

Giancarlo

Do they have the title for the land?

Matteo

Look Peru recognizes, and I go back talking about the personhood, recognize legal personhood only at the level of the community and that, it’s an important thing. And it’s been the fight for titling, it’s been the goal of the federations for many years. But nevertheless, now we realize that parceling, instead of being able to unify under the banner of an indigenous nation, Shipibo is forced into having all these little satellites in a very dispersed territory.

So what we are trying to say here is that it’s important to bring together all these 176 Shipibo communities and coordinate their governance and coordinate their ecological management, and that kind of coordination it becomes an indigenous nation. 

Giancarlo

In order to protect the land 

Matteo

In order to protect the land, for example, when there is a logging company that approaches a community and often bribes or finds a way in to cut the only trees that are left, the community 50 kilometers downstream, doesn’t even get to know about this. And so next year is their own turn. So what we did is, for example, support an indigenous radio that in Shipibo informs the communities about environmental threats/invasions or we have a legal program, that free of charge accepts the request of the valiant communities when they need to file legal action against one of these invasions. We are also helping establish a set of coops, of cooperatives, to offer the communities who, for example, produce non-timber forest products or fruits from the jungle to have a direct fair market in Lima without being squeezed by the middlemen along the way.

So by bringing together these different communities under organizing bodies we are in a very few years, we were able to create tangible results in terms of resisting deforestation. 

Giancarlo

Resisting deforestation and protecting the land is probably objective number one, then objective number two might probably be to try to export this body of knowledge. We have a common friend, Jeronimo whose job definition is to imagine how the use of these plants looks like outside their place of origin. One of the typical misconceptions is that everybody focuses on ayahuasca, which is now very well known, but as you see in your film, the idea is that all these plants have therapeutical power and the shaman can recommend the right one. And it’s this science called vegetalismo and you see, and you feel all the different passengers, all the different pasajeros have different medicines. So how are you guys trying to inform the rest of the world that this is a culture that needs to be taken and consumed in the right context with the right Sharman.

Okay. What I’m trying to ask you is, how do you see these plants traveling to Europe, to America? What do you think about this phenomenon of neo-shamanism of non-indigenous Sharman? What do you think of that?

Matteo

Look, it’s a complex topic, the reality is that my focus is introspective. I also do advocacy and I’m involved in reaching out to the rest of the world so I’m going to try to address your question as well.  But the real focus of our work is in Peru, and not only in Peru but also within ourselves introspectively. So we are trying to understand this knowledge system. In a way that self serves the practitioners, I make an example about this, our is a philanthropic enterprise, we are doing philanthropic work in Peru, but we don’t do that by convincing the west or begging for money. (We also do crowdfunding campaigns) but the core of our work is financed by dealing with Shipibo art, which is quite unique framework in the sense that by offering a stage to the very particular cultural diversity of the Shipibo we are able to also finance the operations that, need to be financed to protect the environment. So this is a way to answer your question. 

But then I go back to the idea of looking, zooming out, and seeing the journey of these plants to the world. And it’s definitely important to remember these, not just ayahuasca like you were saying, but it is a complex medical system that for years was able to provide solutions not only for mental health but also for any kind of problems in the body, including orthopedics. So for example, part of my work now is studying Shipibo midwifery, the midwife, since blood and ayahuasca clash, wherever there is blood, like in giving birth, that there is a contact with blood, there is a whole other range of plants that they do not clash with blood that they are used by the midwives for many different reasons. So it’s important to understand that. We do not need to break down again in a reductionist way, the medical system and what we need to try to understand it in a way in which bodies, minds, territories, plants are all part of the same thing.

And then I go back to the idea of extraction. So I already answered how I see this. I see that the world is extracting knowledge and is using these plants for healing themselves. And In the case of the US, it’s very clear in which the path towards medicalization is once again, leaving out indigenous practitioners. Not only because they are not involved in the medical studies, but also because many indigenous, first nations reserves, do not have any longer access to the very plants that the west is trying to exploit, in the case of New Mexico this is evidence, for example with peyote and how this is informing psychedelic medicine for a while. But the people there are struggling with alcoholism and poverty.

So again, I think we should stop focusing on healing ourselves and try also to embrace a more holistic way in which the healing of our own bodies comes with a work of reciprocity towards the indigenous people that provided this knowledge.

Giancarlo

Yes, because if I may, I think that there’s just a different approach between Western medicine, which is more reductionist and more oriented to treat the symptoms. And also the way these are organized with grants, it becomes very linear in determining the right therapy for the right pathology. Whereas the indigenous approach is a more holistic art of living really.

Matteo

Imagine that the people believe that when you are sick, the whole community needs to partake in the ceremony so it becomes a collective treatment. As we discuss, if healthcare is right or a privilege, the Shipibo see it as a duty and as a collective interest, you need to cure the individual for the good of the community. So some of these ideas, I think they could be adapted and adopted elsewhere in order to improve the way that we collectively take care of all the public. 

Giancarlo

Yes, and as you know I’m dabbling a little bit with permaculture in Ibiza. And I’ve been seeing with my eyes, to what extent the ecosystem is resilient and regenerative. If you don’t interfere, if you let the plant help each other, you really see that, underground on the chemical level, there is like, a concert of collaboration. So I think that’s what inspired the Shipibo in things like, you know, all the community needs to be present in a ceremony to heal a member of the community. There is this disconnectivity, which we have lost in the west. I don’t know if you can talk about it, there is a new project now in Peru, there’s a new land that you guys might collaborate with and maybe have a center there.

Matteo

Yes. It’s all starting now, we were donated an incredible piece of land and we are exploring the idea of creating an institute that is going to bring together plant medicine indigenous politics, and art as an educational organization. It is going to be a way to experiment with a new way of thinking about conservation, even within the Peruvian legal framework, by bringing together indigenous sovereignty with conservation. So right now, these two completely separate in the legal understanding of Peru. So you can have a natural park, sometimes overlaps, but usually, it’s in conflict with the interests of an indigenous title land. So we want to basically experiment with a new model in which indigenous people take responsibility for conservation and therefore that they are recognized with full titling of the land.

So this is going to be the mission of the institute. The other mission is to bring together art and politics with, visionary practices because now there is also a kind of division happening. Much of Shipibo art is a victim of folklorization and many of the artists do not take the plants. And so they’re just repeating the patterns without a first-person experience. So part of the idea of the Institute is also to bring back together visionary practices with the visual renditions that are the goal of the artist. And also by doing that taking care of a wider form of healing that extends to the territorial dimension.

Giancarlo

And what does politics have to do with all that?

Matteo

Because indigenous politics organize indigenous groups and are able to interface with the Peruvian state. So to have a level of autonomies that are comparable to the regional body of governance or the municipal body of governance. So we are trying to have indigenous nations have autonomy and protection because unfortunately, corruption plays at every level of the state in Peru. Being able to have regional autonomy is one of the goals of the Shipibo of representative bodies. 

Giancarlo

They’re very interesting. I’m thinking if there is the possibility to invite school teachers and educators from around to learn a little bit, this basic principle of, shamanic principle of integrating with nature and export that in the school worldwide.

Matteo

Yeah. The goal is that one. So we were thinking of doing a summer school in which Western students have the chance to learn about these topics onsite, by inviting also academics from all over the world. For the rest of the year, have the institution dedicated to the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, to Shipibo people apprentices, and also becoming a school for future leaders. We focus on politics. We need to build the next generation of lawyers and leaders in order for the people to take the handle of their destiny

Giancarlo

To protect their culture. Absolutely so interesting. Maybe in the future, there will be how there is now the Silicon valley tech entrepreneur that goes around doing talks about scalability. We can then have a Shipibo educator going around, teaching people about integration with nature. So this is very interesting. Congratulations on all your work that you do. What about in terms of your creative life?

What’s next are you working on a new book or a new movie or a new piece of art.

Matteo

Look, I want to first before talking about me because I always say this is not about me. So I want to talk about some great news. It’s Sara Flores, a Shipibo artist who is opening her first solo show at White Cube in London on November 26. So we are focusing on these incredible opportunities. I want to thank Giancarlo because he was a part of making this a reality. So that is going to be the next step. And then following the wave of these let’s say incorporation of the contemporary artwork with indigenous artists, that we are also working to providing a similar stage to other people, artists here in New York. So follow us on our website and you’ll receive information about the next shows in New York as well. 

And then myself, in terms of something that is more of my authorship that I’m writing a film, which tries to bring together all these things that we’ve been talking about from AI shamanism to the need of understanding ecology under a spiritual perspective and how these things can help Shipibo and possibly also help other movements who are experimenting against neoliberal systems.

Giancarlo

What can be the alternative to the neoliberal system? 

Matteo

I don’t know, I mean the work of an activist needs to be seen long-term otherwise you don’t find the energy to wake up in the morning because we are losing ground, and when you try to defend indigenous land that you see exactly how it is in which capitalistic society bites a piece more every day of your territory. The problem of capitalism and colonialism is very evident when you are trying to defend indigenous lands. So I don’t know if you will ever be able to do anything that is significant in these attempts to resist neoliberalism.

But what we can do is experiment with an alternative way of living, in a community,l  or a portion of land in the middle of the Amazon that is trying to do something different than maybe after the cataclysm our little experiment or maybe the experimental of somebody else is doing something similar is gonna inspire a new way of creating society. In the end, the idea is to keep the flame of the spirit alight and what destiny is bringing us. 

Giancarlo

That’s very interesting. And also in Ibiza, there is a very strong movement for regeneration of the land. So this is a concept and now it’s very clear that you want to use principle by diversity to regenerate the land. But what is also starting very slowly is this idea that, okay, you are an entrepreneur, you’ll rent some land. You higher a farmer, and you do regenerative principle, and you do regenerate the land. But then the question here is, do you have a regenerative relationship with the landowner and the farmer? And the answer is no because the farmer gets a salary and the owner gets rentb, but there is nothing regenerative about that relationship. 

So one of my personal projects, we are developing a documentary podcast, which is maybe 10 episodes going in-depth of this idea of regeneration, and try to explore alternative systems of business relationships that are regenerative. So we’re looking at things like co-operative where the people involved are co-owners where there is an alignment of interests. And what I feel is really happening in Ibiza, which is a great laboratory for regeneration, is really the development of a regenerative lifestyle.

So the practice of course of self-development, practice of awareness, the practice of localization, it’s very inspiring and what’s the right word I’m looking for. It’s encouraging. 

Matteo

Yeah, I’m really glad that you are working in this direction, and I admire you for doing this because I think again even Ibiza can be a pilot for something that then maybe one day it’s going to become more relevant throughout a larger territory. The same we are doing with the Shipibo for example, we are trying to use non-timber forest products. I’m talking about saps and leaves and fruit of the jungle and different plants that the Shipibo have knowledge about to prove that they have more value than the monocrops or the logs the jungles are destroyed for.

So I think the goal again I was trying to go against neoliberalism although here I’m contradicting myself because I think it is possible to align an economical interest with a regenerative interest. It’s possible to defend the jungle instead of exploiting it by cutting down trees, by knowing the value of the medicinal and cosmetic plants with a million applications, it is possible to use them without harm.

So in that sense, there is a way to improve at every level. It’s important to degrow and consume less, but it’s also important to consume whatever we consume in a way that is sustainable. 

Giancarlo

Very good. So thank you very much. We’ve been together for 50 minutes. You said that you admire me, but I admire you more because I think that you are really mixing your incredible creativity and talent as an artist with the passion of an activist and with the heart of a shamanic indigenous person. For people that want to know more, you mentioned they can check on the website if and when there is a Shipibo artist show in New York, which one?  

Matteo

My website is Shipiboconibo.org So it’s the Shipibo Conibo Center, just put it on Google it’s gonna pop up. And it’s an art project in the shape of a nonprofit organization. We are open by appointment only during this COVID time, but I welcome everybody to reach out and come and have tea with us.

Giancarlo

I mean, amazing. We’re going to publish this podcast probably in a couple of weeks. How long is your GoFundMe campaign? 

Matteo

Yeah, we just started a GoFundMe. It’s going to be open-ended for a year. We are trying to support Guardia Indigena, which means indigenous park patrols. So it’s an army of women, kids, and men that is walking around the indigenous territory in order to provide an alert for a land invasion. So it’s a very simple system, we hope to be able to incorporate drones, and boats, and other ways to make it faster, but for now it is really just people walking around their territory. And whenever there is an invasion with an alert system, they can file legal actions, call in other bodies to intervene.

So please consider supporting Shipibo Guardia Indigenous because it’s a very good way to protect indigenous territory in a moment in which cocaine deforestation is taking on.

Giancarlo

And so how do they find the GoFundMe campaign? 

Matteo

The GoFundMe campaign is on the homepage of our website Shipiboconibo.org. And maybe we can put the link at the end of the podcast.

Giancarlo

Of course, we’re going to put all these relevant links and thank you Matteo for giving us your time and I’m looking forward to speaking. In the near future about more of your project and how they’re all going. Thank you for coming.

Matteo

Grazie Giancarlo