Notes from the journey

1 — “We were born of the waters, or the waters, the winds and the ever-constant stone whale” — Ailton Krenak, Mateus Aleluia and João Paulo Tukano

2 — “The stone canoe, or that immense body that has already twisted itself” — Ivan Tukano, João Paulo Tukano, Nuria Castro and Ailton Krenak

3 — “The Indigenous presence in Guanabara Bay or there is no foreign land” — Carlos Papá and Renata Tupinambá

4 — “Olorun: to greet this light or water is mother” — Ailton Krenak and Mateus Aleluia

5 — “Dissolution or neither all nor nothing” — Ailton Krenak, Nastassja Martin, Mateus Aleluia, Isael Maxakali, Sueli Maxakali, Isabelinha Maxakali and Mamei Maxakali

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Visions of Guanabara is the result of research in books, documents, maps, and collections, and is composed of many voices.

The notebook brings together different perspectives on the territory of Guanabara Bay, starting from the idea that Rio de Janeiro is the epicenter of the geomythological event that gave rise to life. The same bay is also a crossroads, a territory of historical dispute, invaded by Europeans in the 16th century, when it was surrounded by about 90 Indigenous villages. Despite the deep transformations and socio-environmental challenges, this bay continues to pulse as a symbol of resistance and of multiple meanings.

Map with an overlay of different times and layers of information. We included, among others, geological formations, Indigenous villages prior to invasion, fauna, and the canoe of transformation. To access the reference materials we consulted during the research, visit the Visions of Guanabara.

TRANSBOUNDARY WATERS – Moisés Piyãko

“A river is like a people. A river that is dying from pollution is like a people dying amid the destruction being inflicted on nature.” – Moisés Piyãko

In the eighth Selvagem Message, Moisés Piyãko, a shaman and leader of the Ashaninka people, delivers a message of love for the waters and protests against the devastation of the forests and their communities caused by deforestation and illegal extractivism. Viewing nature as an inseparable part of our existence, Moisés speaks of the protection of our waters as a collective responsibility and calls on us to build a future in which rivers and peoples continue to thrive.

Read here this Message's notebook.

THE CALM AND THE TEMPEST – Kiana Weltzien

“I learned everything aboard this boat, and to this day I say that I don’t know how to navigate. The boat is the one that navigates me.” – Kiana Weltzien

In the seventh Selvagem Message, Kiana Weltzien shares her experiences over 10 years of making the ocean her home and her teacher. Recorded in Paraty aboard the Mara Noka, a wooden catamaran more than 50 years old, Kiana’s Message brings together her reflections on the non-human forces of rain, wind, and ocean, and how they shape the way she sees the world.

Read here this Message's notebook.

ANIMATED WATER – Aline Matulja

“This water here was once a dinosaur, once a forest, was once trapped inside rock, travelling through the soil. It was once human and non-human. And now it is here.” – Aline Matulja

In the sixth Selvagem Message, Aline Matulja takes us on a brief journey through the history of water, this 4-billion-year-old “animated lady” who continues to reinvent herself. Bringing together the thinking of scientists such as Vladimir Vernadsky (author of Biosfera [Biosphere], published by Dantes Editora in 2019), Indigenous peoples, and ants, Aline proposes new ways of thinking about and feeling this ancestral element.

Read here this Message's notebook.

MOTHERWATER – 25 October 2025

Photos: Caleidoskópica / Alex Ferro

On the afternoon of October 25, Selvagem held the gathering MOTHERWATER, a crossing of Guanabara Bay that brought together around 200 people during four hours of navigation between Rio de Janeiro, Niterói, and Paquetá. Aboard the Charitas ferry, thinkers, artists, and Indigenous leaders shared songs, memories, and reflections on water as a living element in crisis.

In a great greeting to the peoples and a celebration of diverse narratives, MOTHERWATER included the presence of artists, coordinators, and participants from the five Living Schools movement: Guarani, Maxakali, Huni Kuin, Baniwa, and Tukano-Dessano-Tuyuka. In the cosmology of the peoples of the Upper Rio Negro, as explained by João Paulo Tukano, Guanabara Bay is a sacred place that appears in their origin narratives of humanity, identified as the “Milk Lake”: “Milk in the sense of potency, that which sustains and generates life,” João Paulo said.

Ailton Krenak, Indigenous leader and co-founder of Selvagem, was joined by the musician and thinker Mateus Aleluia, bringing their visions together during the journey, which in Ailton’s words becomes a “gesture that claims the historical memory of this territory". Mateus Aleluia brought the enchantment of the waters through his songs during the crossing, while also questioning colonial narratives and reclaiming the ancestry of African-origin spiritual traditions: “All culture comes from a cult. Life itself is a cult – a religare. And only in 1978 were Black people allowed to practice their cult without needing to ask for permission".

Engineer and geologist Nuria Fernandez spoke about facoidal gneiss, “the most Carioca of rocks,” which places us, through the stones of Guanabara Bay, in dialogue with the deep layers of this territory’s origins. Carlos Papá, coordinator of the Guarani Living School, shared part of his profound research that connects language, territory, and protection: “Guanabara has another translation in Guarani, Kua-Gua-Mba-Ara, something like ‘embrace every day’.”

Anthropologist Nastassja Martin reflected on the civilizational crisis caused by our rupture with the elements. “Spring water is the vector of a new initiatory birth. But the West transformed it into a ‘resource’. Neither water, nor air, nor earth, nor fire are animated anymore – we no longer listen to them.”

During the journey, the enchantment also unfolded in Indigenous songs from different regions of Brazil, such as those of Huni Kuin pajé Dua Busë and Netë, from the Heart of the Forest Village, the Huni Kuin Living School in the Upper Jordão River region (Acre); and those of artist and pajé Mamei Maxakali alongside Sueli, Isael and Isabelinha Maxakali, from the Forest School Village, the Maxakali Living School, located in the rural area of Teófilo Otoni (Minas Gerais). The japurutu flutes were played by Francisco Fontes Baniwa and Idjahure Kadiwel, representing the Baniwa Living School, located in Assunção do Içana (Amazonas).

Artist Renata Tupinambá, a member of the collective Guanabara Pyranga: Gathering of Cultures of Guanabara, sang her grandmother’s memories in Tupi and recalled in her words the more than 80 Tupinambá villages that once existed in the bay’s territory.

MOTHERWATER also originated the films that make up the Waters Cycle, released in 2026.

Photos: Caleidoskópica / Elea Mercurio

A conversation on Guanabara Bay that took place at BiblioMaison on September 3, with Rafael Freitas da Silva, Ana Thereza de Andrade Barbosa, Emanuel Alencar, and Val Quilombola. This conversation initiated a larger crossing that led to MOTHERWATER, on October 25, in the waters of Guanabara Bay.

WATERSHORE, as its name suggests, is a first approach to the Bay from the perspective of the Indigenous villages that once formed a straw civilization around it. A civilization that left more cultural than archaeological traces. The meeting will seek intersections that evoke the carioca spirit and its relationship with the waters over time. Together with the guests, we will observe socio-environmental aspects, explore the disputes and the enchantments of this bay, so emblematic of the complexities of the Anthropocene.

The talks were transcribed and form part of the Visions of Guanabara notebook.