In Peru, artists came together to spotlight how climate change is impacting its Indigenous communities by creating a comics anthology.
Puro Peru is a 92-page comic using “ancestral knowledge of local communities,” including tradition and myth, to educate young readers on current environmental justice issues. For instance, the book includes eight comics that allude to Indigenous divinities like Mama Qucha, who is tied to water sources like lakes and rivers, Pachamama, who represents the earth, and Apu, who constitutes spirits of the mountain.
“The comic begins with two general stories that illustrate the consequences of climate change globally, while the remaining six chapters are more concrete narratives developed in Peru,” José Fernández Crespo, a head at CESAL, the non-governmental organization behind the project, told La Vanguardia.
CESAL, which has supported climate issues like agroforestry and protecting riverbeds, said its biggest objectives with the comic are to explain the consequences of climate change at global and regional levels to children as well as to “promote development cooperation” in Peru, particularly between the mountain communities of Apurimac and the Amazon in Ucayali, between 2014 and 2019.
The comic united eight creatives, including El Rubencio, Alex Orbe, Calo, Paco Roca, Pam López, Ana Miralles, Nuria Tamarit and Teresa Valero, who illustrated the project in a “simple, very visual and educational” way that shared each of their individual artistic styles.
The first two comics illustrate the global impact of climate change, while the last six center on Peruvian narratives.
The comic is free and available worldwide through a digital version that accompanies the printed comics that CESAL is circulating throughout Peru.
