Some images from my latest project, El árbol que llora (The Crying Tree), the culminating chapter of my project, Mi país imaginado (My Imagined Country)

Between 1879 and 1912, the Peruvian Amazon endured a brutal era of rubber extraction, often termed "ethnocide" or "genocide." This dark chapter, deliberately omitted from our national narrative, saw the tragic loss of over 40,000 indigenous lives due to the inhumane conditions imposed by the Peruvian Amazon Company. Financed by British capital and led by Peruvian Julio César Arana, the company's operations in the Putumayo River region were marked by mistreatment, starvation, torture, and murder.

To shed light on this hidden history, I have superimposed historical documents onto the pages of "Rubber, a Wonder Story," a children's book published in 1919 by the United States Rubber Company. This propaganda piece glorifies the rubber industry, deliberately obscuring the atrocities committed to fuel the growing demand for automobiles and other rubber products.

Through El árbol que llora, I invite viewers to confront the complexities of our shared past and to consider the ongoing repercussions of unchecked corporate greed.