*/
In the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, where the renaco tree yields its precious bark and the forest whispers ancient stories, Santiago Yahuarcani has created a visual language that bridges millennia. This exhibition, presented in Manchester’s lovely Whitworth Art Gallery, spans works from 2005 to 2025 and presents the first survey of an artist whose work is as much about cultural survival as it is about visual richness.
Yahuarcani belongs to the Aimeni clan of the Uitoto Nation. He works on traditional bark cloth made from Amazonian trees, and uses pigments sourced directly from the forest floor. His paintings pulse with the rhythm of oral traditions passed down through generations, transformed by him into visual narratives. And many of the pictures are also completely bonkers. They teem with human figures and wildlife, sometimes terrifying and with the distinction between them often unclear. Spirits and rainbows and stars fly through the sky and the forest appears as a very sentient being.
The exhibition demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge systems offer alternative ways of understanding the natural world. But some of the paintings also address periods in the life of the Amazon where nature and indigenous populations have been decimated by extraction exploitation for products such as rubber. Yahuarcani’s painful memories of colonial violence, dispossession and environmental destruction are rendered with the same passion as his celebration of family life and forest sounds.
Organised into themes, the exhibition allows us to trace the evolution of Yahuarcani’s work while understanding the consistent threads that run through it. From his early tourist paintings to his mature explorations of Uitoto mythology, to his paintings which show the impact of COVID-19 on his community, we witness an artist discovering that his great power lies in mining his own cultural inheritance and finding that the themes unearthed have global resonance.
There is some success in transposing the multisensory nature of Yahuarcani’s work with supporting videos and detailed explanations and quotes. The exhibition demonstrates the contemporary relevance of traditional voices and materials used to carry modern messages about environmental protection and cultural rights. Yahuarcani’s work offers a powerful reminder that the beginning of knowledge (to take the exhibition’s title) often lies in remembering what we have always known. The result is art that is both deeply rooted and but wholly relevant to issues of the current and desperate need for social and environmental justice.
Until 4 January 2026 at The Whitworth, Manchester
In the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, where the renaco tree yields its precious bark and the forest whispers ancient stories, Santiago Yahuarcani has created a visual language that bridges millennia. This exhibition, presented in Manchester’s lovely Whitworth Art Gallery, spans works from 2005 to 2025 and presents the first survey of an artist whose work is as much about cultural survival as it is about visual richness.
Yahuarcani belongs to the Aimeni clan of the Uitoto Nation. He works on traditional bark cloth made from Amazonian trees, and uses pigments sourced directly from the forest floor. His paintings pulse with the rhythm of oral traditions passed down through generations, transformed by him into visual narratives. And many of the pictures are also completely bonkers. They teem with human figures and wildlife, sometimes terrifying and with the distinction between them often unclear. Spirits and rainbows and stars fly through the sky and the forest appears as a very sentient being.
The exhibition demonstrates how Indigenous knowledge systems offer alternative ways of understanding the natural world. But some of the paintings also address periods in the life of the Amazon where nature and indigenous populations have been decimated by extraction exploitation for products such as rubber. Yahuarcani’s painful memories of colonial violence, dispossession and environmental destruction are rendered with the same passion as his celebration of family life and forest sounds.
Organised into themes, the exhibition allows us to trace the evolution of Yahuarcani’s work while understanding the consistent threads that run through it. From his early tourist paintings to his mature explorations of Uitoto mythology, to his paintings which show the impact of COVID-19 on his community, we witness an artist discovering that his great power lies in mining his own cultural inheritance and finding that the themes unearthed have global resonance.
There is some success in transposing the multisensory nature of Yahuarcani’s work with supporting videos and detailed explanations and quotes. The exhibition demonstrates the contemporary relevance of traditional voices and materials used to carry modern messages about environmental protection and cultural rights. Yahuarcani’s work offers a powerful reminder that the beginning of knowledge (to take the exhibition’s title) often lies in remembering what we have always known. The result is art that is both deeply rooted and but wholly relevant to issues of the current and desperate need for social and environmental justice.
Until 4 January 2026 at The Whitworth, Manchester
Chair of the Bar reports back
Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs
A £500 donation from AlphaBiolabs has been made to the leading UK charity tackling international parental child abduction and the movement of children across international borders
Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs, outlines the drug and alcohol testing options available for family law professionals, and how a new, free guide can help identify the most appropriate testing method for each specific case
By Louise Crush of Westgate Wealth Management
Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs, examines the latest ONS data on drug misuse and its implications for toxicology testing in family law cases
The odds of success are as unforgiving as ever, but ambition clearly isn’t in short supply. David Wurtzel’s annual deep‑dive into the competition cohort shows who’s entering, who’s thriving and the trends that will define the next wave
Where to start and where to find help? Monisha Shah, Chair of the King’s Counsel Selection Panel, provides an overview of the silk selection process, debunking some myths along the way
Do chatbot providers owe a duty of care for negligent misstatements? Jasper Wong suggests that the principles applicable to humans should apply equally to machines
There is no typical day in the life as a Supreme Court judicial assistant, says Josephine Gillingwater, and that’s what makes the role so enjoyably diverse
Kindness Ambassadors – coming to a courtroom near you! Valerie Charbit, Nicola Shannon KC and Professor Robin Banerjee update readers on the second phase of the project examining, and promoting, the impact of kindness and how it can fit into an adversarial system
