Light the Land - Portraits of Earth Keepers: Sandra Viviana Cuellar Gallego, Water Quality and Community Activist in Colombia

Monday, May 12, 2014

Sandra Viviana Cuellar Gallego, Water Quality and Community Activist in Colombia - Portrait 18

Rough draft gouache painting by Liz Peterson

Sandra Viviana Cuellar Gallego has been missing since February of 2011. She was a 26 year-old environmental engineer, teacher and activist who advocated for the rights of the local community to have a voice in the decisions affecting their environment and livelihood. She was passionate about water quality and wetland issues. She was working with Friends of the Earth Colombia at the time of her disappearance.

Sandra Viviana's cell phone and identity documents were found near a bus stop that she was to take to give a talk at the National University of Colombia. Her family and many international groups have appealed the Colombian government to investigate her disappearance thoroughly, but there has been no progress in the search for her. Colombia has the worst record in the world for forced disappearances, according to a report by the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, with over 50,000 people being registered as missing.

Sources:

http://english.pravda.ru/history/09-03-2011/117139-Colombia_Sandra_Viviana_still_missing-0/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqXi938zYfM

http://www.usofficeoncolombia.org/docs/breaking-the-silence/press-release-forced-disappearance-report-final.pdf

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What Is This?

"Light the Land" is a collection of portraits and stories of environmental activists who have been killed in the past decade. Starting on Earth Day 2014, I set out a goal to create or commission a portrait of one activist daily for 30 days. In the end, there were a total of 25 portraits. Most are still unfinished as they were only completed in a day.

This blog is a reaction to the recent report published by Global Witness about the dramatic increase in murders of activists worldwide over the past few years. Most of these brave individuals were killed due to their activism in a brutal attempt to silence their voices of opposition. In my small way, I hope to keep their voices and stories alive through my artwork.

All artwork created by me for Light the Land is freely accessible to distribute so long as the images are not used for individual profit in any way. I do request that anyone using an image link back to this blog so that people may learn more about these heroes and the international effort to protect living environmental activists.

There is also a facebook page where I share current news about environmental activists on the frontlines across the world.

I am slowly finishing portraits and creating new ones which I will share as completed. If you stumble across this blog and know of someone that I should include, please email me at sundewstudio@gmail.com

~Liz Peterson

For Submissions

Please spread awareness of this cause and blog, and contribute your own artwork! If you are interested in submitting a portrait or story to this blog, please email Liz at sundewstudio@gmail.com with a digital copy of your work. Also, please contact me if you see any errors, have any suggestions or any concerns about the content. I recognize that I am unfamiliar with all of the nuances and years of context involved in the situations I am describing, and am using news articles, blogs and NGO websites for my information. There is always a possibility of misinformation.