In September 2020, climate activists from the northern region of Minho in Portugal and the neighboring Galiza region in Spain united in protest against lithium mining. Two protest banners, one in Portuguese and the other in Galician, were held by them over the bridge that connects both countries.
As our work group consisted of people from both Brazil and Portugal, two countries afflicted by lithium mining, we decided to reference that impactful moment of the union against a common threat. After thorough scientific research, a group of symbols depicting some of the nefarious consequences of lithium mining was created. A flag was then made, bearing the symbols and a protest sentence combining Portuguese and Brazilian dialects calling to action.
Seeing as climate activists are often silenced, we chose to make protest stencils as well, so that anyone, both in Brazil and Portugal, could use them to spread awareness anonymously. Each stencil contains not only a symbol but the corresponding bibliography of the study or news article that inspired it, as an attempt to fight against the rampant fake news and misinformation movements.
