Atelie Mukambu

A Black Indigenous pulse of knowing, making, and resisting

Atelie Mukambu Oya Land Defenders Programs

The Oya Land Defenders Program, led by Ateliê Mukambu, emerges as a grassroots response to the escalating violence against Black and Indigenous land defenders in the Jequitinhonha Valley, Minas Gerais. Rooted in the ancestral knowledge and resilience of quilombola communities, the program offers a safeguarding alternative model of territorial protection—one that affirms life, dignity, and cultural continuity in the face of extractivist violence.

Partners: Wosso, LAC, FAU

Current Projects

Adahun Residency Program

Adahun is a choreographic investigation that weaves dance, memory, and territory in the semi-arid lands of Minas Gerais. Through immersive residencies, workshops, and community exchanges at Ateliê Mukambu, Adahun challenges colonial geographies of knowledge and reclaims the Jequitinhonha Valley as a cradle of Black-Indigenous aesthetics. In doing so, it affirms dance as a tool for decolonial creation, territorial defense, and environmental justice, rooted in the collective spirit of those who walk, dance, and dream along the river.

Partners: SECULT-MG, SERTAO NEGRO

Las Artes de si: Quilombos Palenques Cumbes e Maroons

Las Artes de si denotes cognitive procedures, differentiation, and spiritual cultivation by which Black people, in the context of the Americas, liberate themselves from the shackles of colonial categories. Through Las Artes de si, the production of aesthetic experiences, the Black communities of the Americas cultivated resistance, building shared territories, quilombos, cumbes, and palenques. The research was shared by presentations and workshops across America, in Cali, Baltimore, New York, Indianapolis, Tepoztlan, San Diego, North Caroline and Others.

Partners: UFMG - PPGCOM, UMBC - LLC, NYU - CRACS COLAB, BlackGorundLab