Coleção
Cariri
2017
Cariri is the vibrant green heart of Brazil's northeastern region, but it could also be considered blue, pink, purple, yellow... Cariri encompasses all the colors of the northeastern interior. With a history paved by harsh conditions and fierce struggles, the people of Cariri have blended with newcomers from coastal regions, from Bahia, Piauí, and abroad, transforming the people of Cariri into a mix of many races, creeds, and nationalities.
In Tupi, the term Cariri (or Kariri) means "another nation" or "enemy nation," as they did not speak the same language. It was this feeling of not belonging to the coastal culture that gave rise to a new sense of belonging to a mystical, fertile, sacred, and abundant land—the Cariri of Ceará. In the 1900s, Cariri underwent its delayed renaissance. Our Medici is Cícero Romão Batista. "Padre Cícero" was educated with the devout Ibiapina; he is a messianic, apocalyptic, and controversial figure. Idolized by millions and discredited by others, one thing is certain: Padre Cícero played a major role in the proliferation of Cariri's popular art and culture.
In the early 20th century, Juazeiro do Norte was a district within the city of Crato with a population of no more than ten thousand inhabitants. There were two pharmacies, two public schools, a few stores, and no fewer than 138 artistic workshops. There was a bit of everything there: tailors, goldsmiths, shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and painters. The patron of Juazeiro encouraged the creation of new businesses, thus expanding the possibilities for the local population, which had previously been limited to agriculture on land owned by large landowners. Padre Cícero contributed to the city's residents' independence, preaching "in each house a sanctuary, on each porch, a workshop."
This is the greatest legacy Cariri has left to the world: its artisans, its cultural masters, its craft, largely uneducated but profoundly rich, imbued with "brasilidade," myths, archetypes, in an explosion of colors that, perhaps, on the day when the sertão becomes the sea, may be flooded and, with the protection of the "mother of beautiful love," be elevated to the heavens and reach paradise
