LutoVerde VR

Luto Verde commemorates some of the many Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders who were assassinated recently in the Peruvian Amazon while protecting their communities from extractivist activities and drug trafficking.

Hopefully, to mourn the lives of Mauro Pío, Gonzalo Pío, Arbildo Meléndez, Yenes Ríos, Herasmo García, and Santiago Vega, can be a way of both learning from and preserving the worlds they protected.

This is the VR version of the project made for Meta Quest 2 (Oculus Quest 2).

Luto Verde is the product of the project Virtual Sanctuary for Fertilizing Mourning, created with the intention of commemorating the deaths of Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders assassinated in recent years in Peru while defending their territories from deforestation and drug trafficking. Luto Verde is a virtual sanctuary to remember and grieve for those who have been killed when protecting their land.

We worked for a year and a half, with the support of their families and communities, and developed interactive virtual tours of the locations they wanted to preserve. Each trip is unique and attempts to mirror the universe that each community inhabits, which is profoundly influenced by their territory, their collective activities, and the connections they share with other than human beings. Oral histories, remembrances, songs, and any other information that communities deemed appropriate to share with us were used to create gateways into ways of existence that are deeply threatened while simultaneously providing hints toward the unseen and beloved connections that sustain them. The videos also show the tangible effects of corruption and extractivism in areas where people treat "nature" as if it were an endless source of resources and profit.

For more information visit the website: lutoverde.com