Stefano Sbrulli's 'Donde los niños no sueñan' Exposes Mining Devastation in Cerro de Pasco

Stefano Sbrulli's multimedia project 'Donde los niños no sueñan' documents the environmental and health catastrophe in Cerro de Pasco, Peru, one of the country's poorest cities despite 400 years of mining. Over 15% of Peru's territory is concessioned to extractive industries, mostly foreign, concentrated in the Andes above 3,000 meters. Cerro de Pasco's 70,000 inhabitants live around El Tajo, a two-kilometer-wide, one-kilometer-deep open-pit mine producing copper, lead, zinc, gold, and silver. The NGO Source International found that 100% of the population has heavy metals in their blood requiring urgent hospitalization. Healthcare and education systems are near collapse, with no government aid. Sbrulli's work combines photography and film; the documentary premiered at DIG Awards 2022 and has won multiple prizes. It follows Lourdes, whose son Benyamin suffers from illness, torn between leaving her roots or fighting the mine. A crowdfunded interactive book with augmented reality is planned by Incontri di fotografia.