Jalapoeira Apurada brings together women artisans from three quilombola communities in Jalapão, settlements founded by descendants of people who escaped enslavement. The local culture is shaped by histories of resistance, autonomy and collective life. The artisans share a deep knowledge of capim dourado, a native plant fibre whose distinctive golden sheen occurs entirely in nature. They gather and sort its slender stems, weave them by hand and stitch them with buriti-palm fibre to create sculptures, lighting and decorative objects.

Jalapoeira Apurada was formed in 2021 through a collaboration with Marcelo Rosenbaum’s Instituto A Gente Transforma, WWF-Brasil and Central do Cerrado. “Each community brought its own identity and preserved its singularity, while sharing the same principle: valuing capim dourado, caring for its sustainable management and carrying forward knowledge passed down through generations,” the artisans say. Their work makes cultural continuity inseparable from the living landscape: the knowledge carried by these women can survive only alongside the Cerrado – Brazil’s vast, biodiverse savanna – the capim dourado that grows there and the communities that sustain both.