Shitikari
- Gallery: Room 24
- Maker: Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe
- Made in: Venezuela; Orinoco, River (Pori Pori community, Upper Orinoco)
- Date: 2019
- Object type: textile
- Materials: cotton
- Museum number: 2019,2016.1
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is Shitikari, a striking textile created by Yanomami artist Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe. The fabric, made from cotton, is printed with an abstract depiction of the night sky. At first glance, it looks like a grid of faint, ghostly squares and star-like forms—delicate and dreamlike.
Hakihiiwe represents the clouds as the fabric itself—light and temporary—while the star constellations mark patterns central to Yanomami cosmology. The design reflects how the Yanomami view the sky as a balance point, where the spiritual and the living worlds intersect.
The piece was made in Venezuela’s Upper Orinoco River region and is particularly large, measuring over two meters tall and more than two and a half meters wide. It is part of a broader effort to express the Yanomami worldview through contemporary art, bridging traditional knowledge and modern creative expression.
The artwork’s title, Shitikari, translates roughly to "star" in the Yanomami language—offering a quiet nod to the stars themselves.
See it in person
Shitikari is on display in Room 24 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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