Jaider Esbell

Of Makuxi ethnicity, Jaider Esbell (1979) was born and grew up in the region which today belongs to the indigenous land Raposa Serra do Sol, in Roraima, in the Brazilian Amazon. A trained geographer, he left his job as an electrician at a state-owned company in 2016 to commit himself to art. Today, in addition to working as a cultural producer, curator and multimedia artist who moves through languages such as painting, photography and video, he is the head of the Jaider Esbell Gallery of Contemporary Indigenous Art in Boa Vista, where he has lived since he was 18. In 2016, he won the online category (popular vote) of the Pipa Prize, one of the most important of its kind in Brazil. Alongside the visual arts, Esbell also engages in literature. In 2012, he published his first book, Terreiro de Makunaíma – Mitos, Lendas e Estórias em Vivências (Makunaíma’s Terreiro – Living Myths, Legends and Stories). Another area in which he works is activism, as one of the organizers of the I Encontro de Todos os Povos (1st Meeting of All Peoples).

Jaider Esbell passed away on October 2, 2021, at the age of 41.