Rio de Janeiro,23 de junho de 2021

We are the Núcleo de Artes Digitais e Animações (N.A.D.A.) from PUC-Rio, a group of students located in Rio, Brazil. It thrilled us to receive the invitation from Save me Trust to participate in this project. This was a fantastic opportunity because right now and throughout the history of Brazil we are going through a terrible ecological time, our nature is dying and
so is our native culture.They are being killed by a corrupt government that clings to old ideas of growth without environmental awareness. That being said, we saw the necessity to show the brutal and inhuman conditions that our nature is being subjected to by these actions.

So we can be very accurate to the reality and to the current facts we consulted some indigenous of the tribe Yawalapiti – alto Xingu. Our friends Ana Terra and Watatakalu kindly spoke to us and told their culture, tales and traditions with the animals of Amazonia. It was incredible to hear the relationship that they build and cultivate with nature and the animals. They also talked about illegal fires that devastate the forest and how they run from these fires along with the animals. Those communications were before the COVID-19 arrived in Brazil, and the situation for indigenous tribes just got worse since then. They lost many people, just like the rest of the world, but beyond being surrounded by a pandemic, they have to deal with illegal exploration of wood and the agribusiness.

Unfortunately, our friends Ana Terra and Watatakalu Yawalapiti lose their mother who was also one of the few Cacicas (term used for designated women who lead tribes) for the COVID-19. With her death we don’t lose only a mother and a powerful indigenous leadership representative, but we also lose a part of our native culture, old languages and tales that she kept with her to tell in an upcoming time that now will never come.

It is a very complicated task talking about hopes for the future. First when think that we have more than half of a million Brazilian people dead by COVID-19, and furthermore that in the middle of the chaos the government is trying to flexible the demarcation of the indigenous lands (PL490) which could affect an entire ecosystem that lives in Amazonia. We have a lot to fight for, and we will keep fighting as always. We are here for everyone that is fighting with us for land, equality, nature and the right to exist, and we always will be.

N.A.D.A. Núcleo de Arte Digital e Animação – PUC-Rio site: www.dad.puc-rio.br/nada
Departamento de Artes e Design
Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 225, Gávea

Rio de Janeiro RJ CEP: 22433-900

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