Motherland is an ongoing series shot in Brazil, aims to explore the idea of reconnecting with one’s heritage and the significance that our history and where we come from has on our lives. These images are respectively from the villages of Tekoa Pyau and Piaçaguera.

 

An important part of the culture within Tekoa Pyau and the surrounding villages is the preservation of its traditions. The villagers speak Tupi-Guarani and music is used as a way to express and remember the community’s spirituality and heritage. The use of clay as part of the housing within the village is also a nod to their collective past. Villagers in Tekoa Pyau supplement the government assistance they receive by way of selling traditional handicrafts. Modern technology is present within Tekoa Pyau but its use is not with a view to being a catalyst for change or betterment. Instead, it largely provides a glimpse of the outside world beyond the community, serving as a reminder of the cycle of repetition that each generation of this vulnerable community seems to repeat as they remain neither fully immersed in their own world and culture nor able to partake in that beyond.

 

The village of Piaçaguera is located in the Atlantic Forest biome and occupies an area that goes from the edge of the beach to the hinterland. For many years the land was bought and sold with no consideration of the people who lived and built their lives there whilst preserving their history and traditions. In 2000 a group made up of the indigenous families decided that this could not continue and began a 16 year struggle to reclaim the place of their ancestors. In 2016 the demarcation of Piaçaguera Indigenous Land was approved and registered with a registry office.

 

Today the people of Piaçaguera take care of the land, animals, rivers and forests of the area. But most importantly, the people have taken care of their own future and secured their motherland.