And Now the People know

Interventions Leticia Valverdes and the Munduruku

Mercury contamination in the Amazon through the eyes and hands of Brazil’s Indigenous Munduruku people

And Now the People Know is a collaborative work created with the Indigenous Munduruku people of the Brazilian Amazon, in the village of Sawré Muybu.

The series was born from my interactions with those living at the frontline of the climate crisis, the people who protect the forest for us all but pay the highest price for its destruction.

The process began with an invitation: to create art together.

I returned to the village carrying printed portraits and landscapes from previous visits. Rather than presenting them as finished works, I offered them back to the community as material, as ground for intervention and reflection.

Together, we explored one of their most urgent realities: mercury contamination in their bodies, their rivers and their forest due to illegal goldmining.

Using paint, red urucum (a traditional plant pigment used to paint their bodies), earth, leaves, river water and fire, children, women and elders intervened directly on the photographs.
These gestures became acts of protest and acts of healing.
They carry stories of contamination but also of joy, beauty and resilience. What began as a way to engage young people evolved into a collective, intergenerational process. Hands of different ages worked side by side.

We also created cyanotypes using river water, sand and forest materials. Beads traditionally used in their jewellery were embroidered onto paper and cloth. Many prints passed through multiple hands - younger ones painting, older women stitching, forming a weaving of knowledge, ancestry and hope.

The colour palette and materials symbolic: Red for their blood Gold for mining Silver for mercury, forest materials, Amazon sunshine for cyanotypes, beads that they already use in their crafts.

A Continuation

This work is the second chapter in a visual conversation that began during the pandemic with my own children, in a project titled And Now My Children Know
The Munduruku youth named this new chapter And Now the People Know, a response to that first work and a powerful statement. It feels like is the right time to bring the evidence based knowledge of the impact of mercury contamination to the public of the UK.

Why is it urgent: Gold, Instability and Consequence

As global financial instability deepens, investors are turning to gold as a “safe haven.” The price of gold has risen sharply, reaching record highs as markets fluctuate and geopolitical tensions persist.

But far from the trading floors of big centres, this surge carries devastating consequences.
In the Brazilian Amazon, rising gold prices directly intensify illegal mining activity. And with illegal gold mining comes mercury, a toxic metal used to separate gold from sediment. Mercury poisons rivers, contaminates fish and accumulates in the bodies of Indigenous communities who depend on those waters for life. The global increasing apetite for gold is damaging and the mercury contamination on the food chain, forest and bodies and make it an invisible ticking time bomb.

This project invites communities already proven to be affected by mercury to create hybrid
photography that expresses their struggle