tayrona - Stephen Ferry

TAY RON A
Territory, Culture and Climate Change
A multimedia exhibition
by the Zhigoneshi Communication Center
Contact Person: Andrew Utt.
+1-415-823-4332
+57-310-674-8649
[email protected]
Exhibition Name: “TAYRONA: Territory, Culture and Climate Change”
Exhibition Components:
• 36 photographs by Stephen Ferry and Amado Villafaña/Zhigoneshi
• Wall text by spiritual authorities of the Tayrona peoples (Mamos)
• Graphics illustrating the effects of global warming on the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta
• Film screenings of documentaries produced by the Zhigoneshi Communications Center: “Nabusimake:
Memories of Independence”; “Words of the Elders” and “Ranchería : From Sacred Land to Mega-Project”
• Presentations by Amado Villafaña, director of the Zhigoneshi Communications Center, a spiritual authority
(Mamo) from the Sierra Nevada, and documentary photographer Stephen Ferry, followed by Q & A.
Tayrona: Territory, Culture and Climate Change
This multimedia exhibition communicates a vital ecological message from the indigenous people of the Sierra
Nevada of Santa Marta, Colombia. Responding to threats posed by glacial melting, deforestation, and the construction of dams in sacred watersheds, spiritual authorities (Mamos) of the Sierra Nevada have developed
powerful strategies of resistance, including the production of this documentary work. This exhibition is the
result of eight years of collaboration between the Zhigoneshi indigenous documentary team and photographer
Stephen Ferry, whose association with the mountain’s native authorities began with a 2001 National Geographic assignment.
The exhibition will include documentary films, 36 photographs, text panels, maps, satellite imagery, and presentations by natives spiritual authorities of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. “Tayrona: Territory, Culture and
Climate Change” manifests resistance to environmental destruction and cultural violence, while the dynamic
collaboration between Stephen Ferry and the Zhigoneshi team explores the possibilities of cross-cultural
documentary practice.
With “Tayrona: Territory, Culture and Climate Change”, the Zhigoneshi team and Stephen Ferry invite an international audience to look at the Tayrona peoples’ extraordinary relationship with their sacred mountain habitat,
and to consider carefully their urgent message about global climate change.
Background:
The native cultures of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta are the related Kogi,Wiwa and Arhuaco ethnic groups.
Descending from the pre-Colombian Tayrona culture, they resisted the Spanish Conquest and centuries of attempts by missionaries, brigands and colonists to take their land and destroy their way of life.
The Tayrona peoples see themselves as the guardians of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, whose fate is linked
to that of the world. Over millennia the Tayrona peoples developed sophisticated ecological practices to coexist with one of the most biodiverse high-altitude ecosystems in the world, making them especially qualified to
speak about climate change.
Indeed, the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta is the largest coastal mountain on the planet, rising majestically from
pristine Caribbean beaches along Colombia’s northern coast through dense tropical forests, and peaking among
glacial lagoons and snowcaps at 18,000 feet above sea level. Over half the species on this massif are unique to
the mountain. The Sierra Nevada’s glaciers supply 36 rivers, which sustain life over a vast region of northern
South America.
Because of its proximity to the equator, the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta is acutely affected by global warming.
The United States Geological Survey concludes that 80% of the mountain’s glaciers disappeared since 1800.
The Colombian government’s meteorological agency (IDEAM) calculates that the snowy peaks will be gone by
2050.
In the face of this threat, the Mamos decided to reverse their ancestral policy of guarding silence. They created
the Zhigoneshi indigenous documentary team, and granted Stephen Ferry unprecedented permission to photograph throughout their sacred territory, in order to transmit this urgent message to the world.
films
VIDEO 1: NABUSIMAKE: Memories of Independence
“Nabusimake: Memories of Independence” relates how in 1982 the indigenous Arhuaco
population of Nabusimake (Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia) expelled the mission of
Capuchin monks for having imposed the Catholic religion and Western agriculture by force
onto the indigenous community for decades.
The traditional peoples of the Sierra Nevada - Wiwas, Arhuacos, and Kogis - decided to
tell this stor y, the stor y of non-violent liberation from a histor y of cultural destruction.
The Zhigoneshi Documentar y Center of the Gonawindúa Tayrona organization, composed of
representatives of the three ethnicities, wrote, directed and produced ““Nabusimake: Memories
of Independence.”
Under the direction of Arhuaco photographer, Amado Villafaña Chaparro, the Zhigoneshi team
recovered films made by the Capuchin monks which depict the Arhuaco spiritual authorities as
devils, kidnappers of innocent girls, wild-eyed, depraved pagans. By incorporating this footage,
as well as by re-enacting photographs taken by the Capuchins depicting abuse of the Arhuaco
population, the Zhigoneshi team re-appropriates the cinematic histor y of the Sierra Nevada
of Santa Marta in indigenous terms.
VIDEO 2: Words of the Elders
Wiwas, Arhuacos and Koguis produced this documentar y series which gathers the traditional
thinking of the native authorities (Mamos) of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta with respect
to territor y, culture and climate change.
Over six months of video recording from sea-side to the snowy peaks of the mountain, this
group of six indigenous filmmakers from the Zhigoneshi Documentar y Center were able to
document, without the interpretation of outsiders, the concerns and feeling of their traditional
authorities (Mamos).
The documentar y series is made up of nine questions psoed by the Mamos: Why are you
against the coca plant? Why is our land sacred? Why do we make spiritual payments? What
threatens the water? Why is the world hotter? Why is the snow melting? What do we think of
violence? Who are the younger brothers? There is an additional chapter about how the series
was made. Each chapter lasts seven minutes.
“We must begin to express our existence and our thinking, and we hope to reach the sensitive
part of the majority population, so that among us all we may share the responsibiltity and the
care for nature,” said Amado Villafaña, director of the Zhigoneshi documentar y team.
VIDEO 3: RANCHERIA: From Sacred Land to Mega-Project
This 9-minute video, directed by Stephen Ferr y, accompanies in real-time the odyssey
undertaken by the Zhigoneshi indigenous documentar y team as they tr y to gain access to
document the Ranchería dam project, constructed on top of a Wiwa sacred site and within
the legally recognized cultural and spiritual area of the Tayrona peoples. The Ranchería dam
project, at a cost of $400,000,000 USD, claims to provide water for farmers and residents of
the parched Guajira state; without due consultations with the indigenous authorities of the
Sierra Nevada, construction of the dam proceeds, despite a lack of funds to connect the dam
to its potential users.
RANCHERIA: From Sacred Land to Mega-Project places the audience in the position
of the indigenous filmmakers as they manouver around obstacles placed by bureacrats dedicated
to blocking their view of the dam site. This documentar y makes clear, in almost tragic - comic
terms, the treatment of the native inhabitants of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta by powers
invested in “development” of the mountain regardless of ecological and cultural consequences.
PH OTOGR APH S
Arhuaco village of Mamankana, Aracataca watershed,
4400 meters above sea level.
Pilgrimage to sacred Guatapuri lagoon,
3015 meters above sea level.
Kogi, Wiwa and Arhuaco villages, Don Diego watershed,
c. 1200 meters above sea level.
Pilgrimage by Arhuaco spirital authorities (Mamos) to sacred sites at base of mountain,
0 meters above sea level.
Wiwa pilgrimage to sacred site, Mother of the Wind, Los Naranjos beach,
0 meters above sea level.
ZHIGONESHI COMMUNICATION CENTER