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 continues to flourish (106 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 SuperRare 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 SuperRare 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, SuperRare and the tribes themselves are working to build a better future for the environment and indigenous communities IRL through blockchain, NFTs and Web3 tech.

Requested Grant Amount: $35,000

Expected project duration: 5 months

Proposed tasks, roadmap and budget:

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.

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, train and communicate the Paiter Surui and Cinta Larga communities and finance / fund the creative latitude, tech resources and artistic tools necessary to express their stories, including trip on site, hardware and software used by contemporary digital artists. [Timeline: 3 months] [Budget: $10,000]

(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: 2months] [Budget: $15,000].

(3) Coordinate the release of TESTAMENTO with SuperRare and solicit attendant media / PR outlets. [Timeline: 1 month] [Budget: $8,000]

(4) Create unique social media / marketing content and initiatives to promote and showcase the collection and the project. Schedule Twitter Spaces and Discord events to provide background for and engage with the NFT and Web3 community. [Timeline: 1month] [Budget: $2000]

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.

Quantitative KPIs to measure the success of TESTAMENTO are:

• Video and photographic material delivered by the Cinta Larga and Paiter Surui

• Media coverage and social media interaction

• Content used by Super Rare to promote their position in funding these types of social impact projects

• Sales generated by this collection on MONOGRAMA Space on Super Rare / https://superrare.com/monograma_space

• 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 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.