WE EXIST IN MEMORY
"As long as we exist in memory, we will be fine." -- Maria Centeno
"We Exist in Memory" is a multimedia project exploring the generational impacts of Indigenous displacement through the stories of the Venezuelan Warao refugees in Brazil. There are significant losses to environmental and cultural diversity when Indigenous communities lose their ties to their land, but how can that connection be kept intact across generational displacement?
In response, Warao grandmothers and matriarchs are creatively combining storytelling and their traditional craft of weaving to intertwine their understanding of the natural world with a tactile feeling of home for a displaced generation growing up in Brazil. With their fingertips, they explore the questions: How do you rebuild home from nothing but memories? And how do you pass these memories onto a new generation growing up far from home?
Project of The Home Collective | Supported by the National Geographic Society and the International Women's Media Foundation | Short film and impact campaign
"When I close my eyes,
my thoughts travel to my land. I would like to go there.
When I close my eyes, it’s like a dream. I think, where am I?
Green, green mountains is what I see. When I look closely, I see short groves in abundance and all green. Then it was like an awakening...
I saw pure water."
-- Maria Centeno
