Olinda Muniz Silva Wanderley (1989), from the Tupinambá and Pataxó Hãhãhãe peoples, is a journalist, filmmaker and activist. She writes and edits the Pau Brasil Notícias blog and is the coordinator of the Kaapora Project, created in 2016 with the scope of environmental education and reforestation in the Pataxó Hãhãhãe area. As a filmmaker, Olinda’s work for the project is dedicated to environmentally recover her people’s lands taking the indigenous cosmovision as a magnifying glass. Following the production of various documentaries, Kaapora – O chamado das matas (The forest calling) is her first fiction/ documentary movie and has been exhibited in ethnomedia circles as well as internationally and in Véxoa, the exhibition curated by Naine Terena. She is also the curator of various Indigenous Film Festivals in Brazil.

As part of Brazil Footprint 2021, we showed Olinda's films Kaapora, O Chamado das Matas ( 2020) and Equilibrio (2021)

Itu nai anya arimikane (The forest is our future / The trees that make us grow) is a textile work constructed from over 90 pieces of beaded jewellery, made by over 30 artists from the AMITIKATXI collective (Articulation of Tiriyó, Katxuyana, Txikiyana Women) in collaboration with the Iepè Institute. Presented in a show-and-tell by Nick Hackworth as Director of Paradise Row Projects, alongside a video interview with the Indigenous women that have made the piece.

THEMÔNIAS (The Birth, The Beauty is Ploc, Tower of Babildre and Hierogritos)
Enjoy the UK premier of Themônias. The sequence of four short films brings together scenes of the exaltation of the Amazonian LGBTQIA+ aesthetic and their use of words from the region's pajubá language, affirming the importance of the powerful movement from the northern region of Brazil. Themônias is a platform for art and LGBTQIA+ politics founded by Rafael BQueer and other artists in 2014 and now involves around 150 people in Parà.There will be a special pre-recorded introduction by director, Rafael BQueer. FILM 23 MINS

Image credit: Artist Sarita Themônia acting in the film "Themônias" by Rafael BQueer. Photo: Paulo Evander Castro

Mulambö's (1995, Saquarema, RJ) artistic practice seeks to re-value the symbols of suburban existence in Rio de Janeiro and their relations to structures of power. The artist explores everything from painting, the making of flags and objects, to the internet as a work platform. From a family with tradition in Rio’s famous Carnival, he makes art to affirm that there is no museum in the world like our grandmother's house. He has presented his works in solo exhibitions at MAR - Museu de Arte do Rio, Centro Municipal de Arte Hélio Oiticica and Portas Vilaseca Gallery in Rio de Janeiro. Outside Brazil, he has exhibited at Das Schaufenster space in Seattle and in the group exhibition "SWEAT", at Haus der Kunst, in Munich (on display until 2022). His works are part of important Brazilian institutional collections, such as the Museum of Art of Rio - MAR (Rio de Janeiro, RJ); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo, SP) and the Ingá Museum (Niterói, RJ).

Wach Mulambö in conversation with Francesca Laura Cavallo as a part of Brazil Footprint 00 first edition. Mulambö discusses Afro-Brazilian culture, living by the sea and making art out of poor things as a strategy for resistance.

Naine Terena (Cuiabá–MT, 1980) belongs to the Terena Indigenous people of Mato Grosso do Sul, and she is an artist, curator, activist, researcher and a professor at the Faculdade Católica de Mato Grosso. She has curated, among other works, the exhibition Véxoa: Nós sabemos (Véxoa: We Know, October 2020/April 2021), at Pinacoteca of São Paulo, with works by 23 indigenous artists and collectives. She has a Master's in art from the University of Brasília, a Doctorate in Education from PUC-São Paulo and a postdoc at the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT). She edited the book Povos indígenas no Brasil ( Brazil Publishing, 2018) and was a finalist of the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, awarded by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics in New York. As the head of the organisation Oráculo, established in 2012, Terena is also a communication advisor and programmer of socio-cultural-educational projects spanning from workshops on the Theatre of the Oppressed to talks on technology, Indigenous communities' land struggles and oppression of the LGBTQ community in Brazil. In recent years she has devoted herself to recording and learning Terena chants.

Emerson (Manaus, 1991) is an Indigenous visual artist, a biologist and an art educator for the riverside communities in the Amazon region. He lives in Manaus, the industrial city in the middle of the forest, where he transforms into Uýra, a creature, both animal and vegetal, that walks around to expose and cure systemic colonial diseases. Through organic elements, using the body as a support, Uýra’s walking three overcomes the limits of speech through performance art. Interested in living systems and their violations from the perspective of diversity, dissidence, and adaptation, they (re)tell the natural stories of enchantment and crossings existing in the forest-city landscape. Uýra’s performances have appeared in various exhibitions in Brazil and internationally, including the exhibition Des Livres et Vous, Arles, the Moreira Salles institute and the upcoming Sao Paolo Biennial.
In this lecture for Brazil Footprint 2021, Emerson introduces the political, cultural and biological context informing their practice and their efforts to bring debates about environmental conservation and LGBT rights to communities in and around Manaus.
Photo: Hope, Uyra, 2020 ©Uyra and HickDuarte

Roberta Carvalho, an audio-visual artist from Belem and Artistic Director of the Festival. Amazônia Mapping, takes over the screens of the Revolution Manchester Gallery with a newly commissioned audio-visual installation in collaboration with artists from the Amazônia mapping festival.

Image credit: Amazonia Mapping 2021

MAB, The Movement of People Affected by Dams featured and collaborated in the making of Carolina Caycedo's film A Gente Rio and her long term project Be Damned, which considers the connections between sites of extractive and industrial infrastructure and environmental disasters in Brazil.

MAB has existed in Brazil since 1991. The movement denounces the construction of dams as energy models and their impact on community's lives, underlining the need for the State to create a national policy that would guarantee, in law, the rights of those affected by dams. The organization has exposed the specific impacts of dams in women's lives and promoted the need for women's participation in decision-making spaces, building conditions to accelerate processes of female protagonism within the movement.

Brazil Footprint 2021 program featured Carolina Caycedo's film A Gente Rio and hosted MAB in a panel discussion with Glen Shepard and Olinda Wanderley.

Photo: still from A Gente Rio © Carolina Caycedo

A display of personal objects, crafts, and contemporary sustainable designs made in the region and shared to highlight the importance of "making" to create spiritual and economic prosperity. Presented by Ana Didonet, Craft Agent and Curatorial Advisor for Brazil Footprint.
Vanessa Gabriel-Robinson, an Amazonian woman living in the UK, shares some of the personal objects she chose to bring back from Amapa.
Flavia Amadeu showcases contemporary designs made with rubber from the Amazon.
Enjoy a video interview with Luakam Anambé, an indigenous entrepreneur and activist from the Anambé people, who fulfilled a childhood dream to make dolls that look like herself. Working with her daughter, she designed a range of her own, helping Brazilians embrace diversity and their roots.