Stefano Sbrulli
EL PLOMO DENTRO
Cerro de Pasco is the highest city in the world at almost 4,500 meters high. Over the years the city has developed around the open-cast mine called “El Tajo” (the Cut), a 2 km long and over 900 meters deep crater, from which lead, copper, zinc, gold and silver are extracted. The extraction of minerals is accompanied by the emission of heavy metals that contaminate the water and the surrounding area, causing a strong impact on the health of the population.
Hair analysis performed by Source International has shown that the average concentration of lead in the hair of children in Cerro de Pasco is 36 times higher than the international reference standards. This is a result of the high concentration of heavy metals in the body 100% of the population should be hospitalized urgently.
Today the panorama of Cerro de Pasco is a continuous alternation of crumbling buildings and mountains of waste rocks from which toxic powders rise and from which acidic water emerges. The only solution that has been proposed to date by the Peruvian government is a forced displacement of 80,000 inhabitants in another area of the Pasco region.
Stefano Sbrulli
Stefano Sbrulli (1988) graduated in Digital and Virtual Design at the European Institute of design of Rome in 2010. Between 2011 and 2017 he attended a masters in computer graphics and journalism to tell stories combining graphics and photography/video. In 2015 he started working as a freelance photographer and videomaker and his work has appeared on national and international media outlets including the BBC, Correio Brazielinse, E-Novine, Internazionale, TPI, Huffington Post, La Repubblica, Nat Geo and others. He is currently visual artist in television productions RAI and La7 and a visual journalist in multimedia projects mainly concerning the relationship between man and the environment in which he lives.