Autonomy + Natural Materials + Indigenous Wisdom = …..
At the beginning of January, Alex (my brother) and I traveled five hours south to participate in the inauguration of an autonomous Mapuche-Campesino school followed by a 10 day workshop in natural building that we facilitated along with our dear friend and teacher in life Jorge Belanko. The photos that follow, in my mind, are testimonies of hope, resistence and the recuperation of ancestral knowledge. They are also an example of what can be done with a budget of $100 in materials and many hands fueled by desire.
Mapuche Youth… Hope… Resistence… Earnest quest to maintain ancestral knowledge…
Wisdom of the ages… “Nunca he ido al doctor; me he curado de puro yuyos no mas!”… Testimonies of brutality, injustice, perseverence….
Getting down to work… bringing clay from nearby with oxen and cart… collecting cane, dry tree trunks, sand from the river, stone, and native grasses to build with…
Process….
After 10 days… closer to a finished building.
After 10 days… closer to a finished building.
Inside….
The group….
If the damn project goes through which a multinational company is in the process of studying, the place where these events happened would end up 60 meters below water. And huge megaprojects aside, this is a community in resistence who faces daily the prospect of being removed from their community land. The details and complexities are too overwhelming to include….
