In 2022, Ecuador commemorated the 50th anniversary of extracting the first barrel of oil from the Amazonia. In June of 1972, along with promises of development and progress, it began a history traversed by various forms of violence and devastation. Estado Fósil, edited by Anamaría Garzón Mantilla, Sofía Acosta, and Francisco Hurtado, presents the work of artists, writers, and activists who think about their relationship with oil.

Aware of the undeniable violence that extractivism generates and also of the organization and resistance of the Amazonian peoples and communities against the petrostate, the book proposes to redefine the ways in which we can analyze artistic production given our overarching relationship with oil extraction.