MAHKU —Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin [Huni Kuin Artists’s Movement] is a collective created and led by Ibã Sales, who is a txana: a chanting master in the Huni Kuin’s tradition, a Brazilian Indigenous people living in the state of Acre. Many of their drawings and paintings are produced through spiritual rituals that involve singing, dancing, and the use of nixi pae, a psychoactive substance also known as ayahuasca. The images are the result of visions [mirações] generated by the rituals. They symbolize communication, the opening of new paths and cures. This drawing produced by Ibã Huni Kuin and Bane Huni Kuin, both MAHKU members, is framed by a complex multicolored zig-zag pattern. The ornamented border is common in the collective’s works, it evokes the “paths of a boa constrictor,” which is seen as an enchanted animal responsible for triggering the mental images that emerge during mirações. There are also eight human figures interlaced with the boa constrictor pattern. Their faces are delicately covered by ritualistic body painting, also in zig-zag. In the center we see a landscape made with a different compositional arrangement, packed with foliage, birds, snakes, butterflies, trees, and a frog, scattered in several directions on the surface of the drawing, without a fixed orientation. The relationship between MASP and the MAHKU collective is well-established. Since 2016, MAHKU members have been taking part in workshops, projects and exhibitions in the museum, such as MASP Fashion (2017–2019), for which this drawing was originally produced.

— Tomás Toledo