THE JOURNEY BEGINS
Our first major expedition took place in our home state, Rio de Janeiro, where we grew up admiring the endless mountainous landscapes, lush rainforests and beautiful seaside beaches.
THE MANTIS EXPEDITION
The Mantis Expedition, carried out in 2017/2018, was supported by the National Geographic Society with the goal of telling the story of the Atlantic Rainforest and finding rare and endemic praying mantises.
We went through the most diverse ecosystems of the Atlantic Rainforest of Rio de Janeiro in a meticulous work that generated the record of new species of praying mantises in addition to more than 1000 animal and plant species photographed.
THE ATLANTIC RAINFOREST OF RIO DE JANEIRO
We carried out ten trips and hundreds of hours of searches in places like Serra dos Órgãos, Ilha Grande, Floresta da Tijuca and Costa do Sol. From cold mountains to sand dunes, we found an exuberant nature that resists and must be protected.
A CONTEMPORARY OVERVIEW
The Mantis Expedition was recorded in ten reports sent to National Geographic, with our stories, experiences and discoveries. The result is a contemporary panorama of the Atlantic Rainforest of Rio de Janeiro, its beauties and fragilities.
The Mantis Artists Project was a partnership made during The Mantis Expedition that rescued the union between science and art, so undervalued in the current scenario in Brazil. Ten artists from Rio de Janeiro were invited to illustrate the expedition sites.
The invitation sought to reflect the diversity of the Atlantic Rainforest in art, with each location represented by an artist with a unique style, from tattoo artists to collagists, from watercolors to digital illustrations. The result was an incredible mosaic of authorial arts whose main theme was the praying mantis, the Atlantic Rainforest and The Mantis Expedition.
EXUBERANT DIVERSITY
In the search for praying mantises, immersed in forests, fields and sandbanks, we noticed the enormous diversity of beings that inhabit the Atlantic Rainforest. Hundreds of unique species, some rare, some unpublished, all recorded in photographs and stories.
