Fifty Years Among the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon

On May 18, 2026, the Museum of Ethnography will open its new temporary exhibition, titled Rituals of Beauty, featuring photographs taken by Gustaaf Verswijver during his fieldworks in the Amazon. On the occasion of the opening, the exhibition’s curators will speak with the researcher about anthropological fieldwork and photography, his main research topics, and the rituals and daily life of the Mebengokre (Kayapo) society.

The internationally renowned Belgian cultural anthropologist has been studying the Mebengokre people for fifty years. He began his research in 1974 in a village that had only sporadic contact with the outside world; only a few small planes arrived each year, and the only strangers were an employee of the FUNAI (Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency), a missionary linguist, and the anthropologist. Today, he returns whenever he can to this ethnic group, which is becoming increasingly integrated into the Brazilian nation-state and the globalized world, yet continues to fight resolutely for its indigenous rights.

Venue: MÉTA Space