Quilombiosphere
Quilombiosphere is a tribute to collective struggle, cultural memory, and the woven threads between lineage, land, and identity.
Quilombo:
A historic term for communities organized by fugitives from slavery in Brazil. Quilombos were located in inaccessible areas and usually consisted of fewer than 100 people who survived by farming and raiding. Associated with resistance and capoeira, not only did their resistance adapt to their particular circumstance, through synergy with nature and each other they were able to create spaces where life was able to thrive. Quilombos became not just homes for the formerly enslaved, but also inidigenous Brazilians, and Europeans feeling religious extremism
Biosphere:
The part of the earth and its atmosphere in which living organisms exist or that is capable of supporting life.
Capoeira:
An Afro-Brazilian Martial art disguised within game, dance, and performance. It is associated with Brazil in the 16th century and evolved in this way so that enslaved Africans could train to fight without being stopped by their captors. It also served as an encoding of faith, culture, and identity that allow repressed truths and stories to stay alive to this day.
Medium: Capoeira, poetry, film, and AI. Subject is me.
Poem:
Under bondage, underground, not under fear.
Limbs turned to weapons in the struggle of yesteryear.
Earth gifted lessons, so grounded, we do not stumble here.
Our presence in the jungle turned our quilombos into biospheres.