Barbara Crane Navarro est une artiste, auteur et activiste française qui vit actuellement près de Paris. Pendant 12 ans, elle a passé les mois d’hiver avec le peuple Yanomami au Venezuela et au Brésil, une expérience qui a inspiré sa pratique artistique et ses efforts de plusieurs décennies pour attirer l’attention sur la dévastation de la forêt amazonienne. De la création d’installations artistiques qu’elle brûle à l’écriture et l’illustration d’une série de livres pour enfants, Crane Navarro est une artiste prolifique qui a le pouvoir d’inculquer un sentiment d’urgence, de responsabilité et de connectivité à tous ceux qui interagissent avec ses créations. Nous lui avons parlé de ses plus grandes inspirations, de ce sur quoi elle travaille actuellement et de ce qui rend la forêt tropicale inestimable.

Les photos suivantes appartiennent à Barbara Crane Navarro et ont été publiées avec sa permission.

Barbara Crane Navarro is a French artist, author, and activist who currently lives near Paris. Over a period of 12 years, she spent the winter months with the Yanomami people in Venezuela and Brazil, an experience which has inspired her artistic practice and her decades-long effort to draw attention to the devastation of the Amazon Rainforest. From creating burning art installations to writing and illustrating a children’s book series, Crane Navarro is a prolific artist who has the power to instill a sense of urgency, responsibility, and connectedness in all those who interact with her creations. 

We spoke with her about her biggest inspirations, what she is currently working on, and what makes the rainforest invaluable. 

The following photos belong to Barbara Crane Navarro and have been republished with her permission.


By Gaby Barrios

Quarantine has shown me all the ways a story can be told. A good story can live in the pages of a book, in the words of a social media post, or among the lines of a drawing. At the start of quarantine, I promised myself that I would produce a work of art every day. Though this started as a way to cope with the long stretches of working from home and worrying, it has become a self care ritual that brings me closer to others. I draw the everyday habits that make up my life. Things like painting my nails or doing laundry become the main highlights of my days. By placing them on social media, I like to think these images speak to my friends and family, telling them that the minutia of their lives deserves recognition and celebration. Nowadays I wash the dishes, clean my bathroom, and fold laundry just to have a sense of normalcy. When I draw these daily tasks, I try to show the ways in which they can be beautiful and the way they have always been interesting.

We recently sat down with Nestor “the Boss” Gomez, host of the storytelling podcast 80 Minutes Around the World and 40-time winner of the Moth Grand Slam

Nestor, who used to stutter, hails from Guatemala and found his voice after migrating to Chicago, enrolling in high school, and learning to navigate a new culture. Currently, he uses his platform to encourage others to tell their stories. 

“Every place, person and thing inspires a different story or poem,” he says.

This piece has been lightly edited for clarity. 

The Journey North

My childhood was a very hard childhood. I was the second of four siblings. Actually, I’m the second of six. Two of my siblings died when they were very young. We were poor and my family made Guatemalan worry dolls [small cloth figures dressed in traditional Mayan clothing] that we sold at the airport and tourist shops. 

Congratulations to the winners of the first annual Open Americas photography contest! We received high-quality submissions from across the hemisphere, making it difficult to select winners.

Images were judged for their ability to capture the richness of the diverse landscapes and environments of the Americas. The beautiful photos below were taken in Mexico, Brazil, the U.S., Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.

By Laura Schroeder

My Big Confession

I am a reggaetón fan. There, I’ve said it. 

Nothing gets me dancing quite like the pulsing bass and seductive hooks of popular reggaetón, and there is nothing like a classic Daddy Yankee or Don Omar track to ignite the dance floor with swinging hips and shuffling feet. Perhaps it’s my fond memories of travels in the Dominican Republic and Peru and my Fulbright year in Colombia that feed my affinity to the genre’s dembow beat and frenetically delivered lyrics. Perhaps it’s simply conducive to dancing.