This work is about a mountain and my childhood in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Drawn from memory the mountain ridge of Serra do Curral Del Rey became a revealing layer - from negative to positive - bringing into light the hidden secrets of the mountain and that of my body. This series of photographs called MINE_IRA is a discourse on the environmental impact of the mining industry in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. This work draws from my family’s archives using 35mm color negatives from my childhood. The word “mine” is inserted over each image and used interchangeably between “mine” as a noun, and a pronoun. Both symbolize that which is taken without permission. Once defined as a mine the terrain is subjugated to desecration and exploitation. No better symbol to such acts than “Serra do Curral Del Rey-' - a mountain ridge that framed the city of Belo Horizonte where I was raised but has been carved out by the mining industry. I traced it-'s slopes from memory, as I’ve seen it through my child-eyes. The drawn ridge is now a revealing layer - from negative to positive - bringing into light the hidden secrets of the mountain and of my body. We were both being corrupted, pillaged and abused. We sustained devastation and loss while keeping our facades intact. Of the mountain only remains a shell. I hope to prevent humans from such un-souling. A reclaiming of the body can take place, if the word “mine” is self-proclaimed. In this instance, sovereignty is restored and can no longer be taken away. Not without blunt infringement, violation and betrayal. Something the mountain knows too well. This leads to the last bilingual word-play embedded in the type-setting of the tittle of this work. I-'m a so-called “mineira” - someone from the state of Minas Gerais. But this romantic view of my origins. This idealized upbringing In a society rooted In the mining culture means only one thing: i am a witness and an accomplice to multiple environmental crimes. “Mine_ira” can now only be written this way. Not as mere finger-pointing full of rage against The mine and the men behind it, but as self-responsibility for my own silence and inaction - as “mea-culpa. By relinquishing victimhood and accepting my role as perpetrator and spectator I am now in a position to unleash “mine-rage” and call for The well overdue criminalization of the mining industry. You are criminals. We all are.