Project Name: TESTAMENTO Category: W3 Community & Education

Project Background & Description:

For over 500 years, the Cinta Larga and Paiter Surui tribes of the Amazon rainforest warred with one another. Today, the two cultures have put aside their troubled history and joined together to confront a troubled future: From fires and deforestation to illegal mining, logging and outside development, both tribes must now combat an encroachment on their native lands and a crisis of the spirit, as the region’s nearly 25 million inhabitants compete for increasingly scarce resources, with the richest, most biodiverse area of Brazil turned into a region starved for natural resources, beset by alcoholism, crime and drug addiction, and leaving it among the most impoverished areas in the country, with little to tie the region to the indigenous cultures who shaped it over centuries.

The first exhibition of the GUARDIANS Project featured geo-pinned works of digital art from artists around the world to commemorate and celebrate the indigenous Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga communities. And while the initial iteration of the GUARDIANS Project: https://superrare.com/monograma_space continues to flourish (130 Artworks minted up to date), our hope is–and always has been–that we can ultimately empower these indigenous communities themselves with the resources and support necessary to articulate and showcase their own story, in their own unique way.

TESTAMENTO, the second phase of GUARDIANS, aims to do just that.

TESTAMENTO will showcase and facilitate the sale of both art and artifacts created by the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga communities themselves as a way to educate the public about the rich cultural heritage of the two tribes. All too often, we’ve seen indigenous art exoticised, appropriated and even pilfered. Unfortunately, this is true of organizations and artists who are ostensibly trying to help or bring attention to the indigenous communities. With TESTAMENTO, our dedication to community and to education hopes to eschew these common pitfalls and allow the true creative voice of the indigenous people to speak for itself.

In this way, cultural education and artistic appreciation can become catalysts for each other, working in a cyclical fashion: By educating and providing resources for the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga, the two tribes will be able to use the tools and technology to architect their own historical narrative in a unique way. This will, in turn, educate the “outside” world to the tribes’ struggle and elucidate their creative vision and cultural heritage in a groundbreaking new way.

For the Crypto Art ecosystem, this means two things: For one, holding the sale of TESTAMENTO on the SuperRare platform will bring outside exposure and high visibility/credibility to what is, both artistically and anthropologically, an extraordinary project. While sales from TESTAMENTO will have immediate financial benefits, on a broader scale, we have already begun speaking to larger news and media organizations whose coverage of the exhibit has the potential to spotlight the indigenous struggle and recognize Gitcoin Community as a prime mover in helping to ameliorate that struggle.

Secondly, our aim is to culminate the TESTAMENTO exhibit with a multimedia event featuring members of the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga on hand to discuss and illuminate not just the art and artifacts indicative of their cultural heritage, but to engage in a larger dialogue about how MONOGRAMA, Gitcoin Community and the tribes themselves are working to build a better future for the environment and indigenous communities IRL through blockchain, NFTs and Web3 tech.

Project Ambassadors:

PATRICK AMADON: Patrick is a world-renowned digital and print artist based in Los Angeles. He has worked as a curator and advisor for multiple

HERVE DELHUMEAU: Herve is the Founder of MONOGRAMA. Leading the organization and designing projects, including AMAZONIA and GUARDIANS, and continues to onboard and cultivate talent from all over the world in support of the MONOGRAMA mission.

COLDIE: Coldie is an award-winning mixed media artist whose stereoscopic 3D art has been featured in national juried art exhibitions in the United States, cryptocurrency events across the world, international press including New York Times and Channel 4 London, as well as major auction house exhibitions by Sotheby’s (New York) and Bonhams (London).

TYLER SMITH: Formerly Content Director at SuperWorld, Tyler is a writer and content specialist whose work has appeared in Esquire, VICE, Mcsweeney’s, and UTNE READER, among others. He has also performed marketing work for clients ranging from NASA, SETI and Dell to Duke Cancer Center, TBS and Samuel Adams.

Requested Grant Amount: $12,000 Expected project duration: 4 months

Proposed tasks, roadmap and budget:

To ensure the TESTAMENTO project is carried out as seamlessly and with paramount transparency, MONOGRAMA has laid out the following roadmap and budget requirements:

(1) Coordinate and communicate with the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga communities and finance / fund the creative latitude, tech resources and artistic tools necessary to express their stories, including hardware and software used by contemporary digital artists. This would also encompass educating the tribes on how to utilize the tech, including the photo and video editing of their content. [Timeline: 3 months] [Budget: $8,000]

(2) In addition to digital communication, we feel it is important to make personal contact with the indigenous communities, which entails at least one trip with a representative or two from MONOGRAMA to Brazil to document the experience for a short film about the TESTAMENTO project, and similarly, one trip with a representative from the Paiter Surui and/or Cinta Larga to document the project from a stateside perspective, leading up to the release of the project. [Timeline: 2 months] [Budget: $2,000].

(3) Coordinate the release of TESTAMENTO with SuperRare and solicit attendant media / PR outlets, including potential partnerships with NGOs and relief organizations. Create unique social media / marketing content and initiatives to promote and showcase the collection and the project, including Twitter Spaces and Discord events to provide background for and engage with the NFT and Web3 community. [Timeline: 1 month] [Budget: $2,000]

Deliverables from Cinta Larga and Paiter Surui:

By the end of the project timeline, the Cinta Larga and Paiter Surui will provide 20 original photographs and 10 original videos shot by members of the indigenous communities themselves.

Samples featured using link below: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_zAr1vhbs3J7CYYTTbBGGs0OXaut13rc?usp=sharing

Quantitative KPIs to measure the success of TESTAMENTO are:

• Video and photographic material delivered
• Media coverage and social media interaction
• Content used by SR to promote their position in funding these types of social impact projects
• Sales generated by this collection
• Use and presentation of the collection as a reference by global corporations / governments / NGOs / universities / galleries and museums.

The success of TESTAMENTO depends on many small (though hardly insignificant) factors, including a sellout of the collection on SuperRare and widespread exposure in the media and selected events. However, the real success of this project will manifest itself in its W3 educational influence.

The subsequent reaction of the NFT and Web3 communities, news outlets, relief organizations, governments and the general public will, in many ways, determine whether or not the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga can improve their communities, and preserve their ancestral land.

On a general level, the TESTAMENTO project comes with very little risk. That said, the remote nature of the tribes and the enduring struggles they face with respect to food, water and encroachment on their land by public and private concerns is, necessarily, an ever-present obstacle, and a challenge that seeks to be mitigated by the project itself.

Furthermore, if given this esteemed grant, we will be able to buttress and advance the technology currently available to the tribes, and help to ensure that the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga have the material and professional support to produce their material, along with the creative resources they need to carry out the creation of photographs and videos, the collection and recording of artifacts, and the execution of the project with as little friction as possible.

The TESTAMENTO initiative and exhibit will not hinge on written code, but will benefit the community in a real-world setting, where the stakes have never been higher.

Trees on indigenous and protected lands store more than half of the carbon content of the Amazon, although over 50% of those trees are in danger of being destroyed; the areas richest in biodiversity and natural resources are among the least developed and most destitute. And last year, the Brazilian government cut funding for environmental enforcement in the Sete de Setembro territory (home to the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga) by 24%.

So far, we’ve already begun to provide these indigenous communities with an advanced tech platform (Las generation Mobile / Notebook and tower PC) and train them so they can process, interpret and articulate their culture through their own eyes and experience. This includes offering the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga the mobility and freedom to follow each other in intimate activities, ranging from cultural activities like songs and dances to ceremonies involving medicinal plants and herbs, along with everyday activities such as hunting, fishing and socializing.

The idea that a digital art collection can serve as a catalyst for dramatic social and environmental change is a bold and ambitious proposition, to say the least. But right now, with global warming, deforestation and the oppression of indigenous peoples more rampant than ever, this is the time to be bold. If awarded this grant, the TESTAMENTO project will be able to make significant headway in providing community support, education, environmental stewardship, and an artistic vessel through which the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga can tell their own stories, in their own way.