The Uxpanapa Rainforest is found within the state of Veracruz. This rainforest is part of a larger rainforest, the Selva Zoque that covers parts of Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
This area is considered the most important and most threatened rainforest in Mesoamérica. This rainforest has a high diversity of species: 534 bird species, 178 reptile species, 162 mammal species, 134 fish species and 85 amphibian species. This forest also has 3500 species of plants, in which 300 are orchid species and 200 species are that of different dominant tropical trees.
In 1973, hundreds of thousands of hectares of the Uxpanapa Rainforest was cut in order to relocate groups of indigenous Chinantec people that were being moved by governmental force in order to use and flood their sacred lands by establishing a hydro electric dam.
This direct act of violence against the rights of the people and the rights of the environment has since been called the last great ecoside and ethnocide.
The shock of being moved and the impossible challenges of creating a life in unknown and unfriendly lands, turned the indigenous people away from their long kept traditions and towards learning modern customs in order to understand and survive their new situation.
Shortly after, other indigenous groups of Mixe, Popoluc, Mixtec and Nahuatl families were enticed to move to the area by promises of free land. The laws of that time forced the newcomers to continue to cut and lose their precious natural resources or their given land would be taken from them and given to someone who would “make the land productive”. 
This outright misunderstanding of the way tropical soils and rainforests work, has turned the deforested areas into eroded lands that produce no harvests and are inefficient as cattle ranches.
We believe sacred customs and sacred lands must come together in the understanding that they are not opposite forces, Nature vs. Man, but amazing elements whose history has been intertwined by unfortunate causes and whose future must be united if it is to be triumphant.
Art is a creative and healing process that can become a way of life and a way of honoring life.