Ever since 2017 there has been a close cooperation between the Ethnologisches Museum, the Indigenous high school ENOSIMAR (Escuela Normal Superior Indígena María Reina), its community museum in Mitú as well as the Indigenous community of Macucu in Vaupés, Colombia. Over the years, the project’s intense engagement with historical collections from the region has led to a revival of disappearing material practices and traditional knowledge. Numerous workshops on basket weaving, the construction of a traditional longhouse, ceramics and the environment’s annual ecological cycle have been held in Macucu since 2018 and are being documented on film. This practice serves as long-term documentation that is expanded with each activity, both for the community and the museum.
Community garden in Macucu
The Kotiria in Macucu do not regard artefacts, the plants from which they are made, and the territories where they grow as different subject matters. All these issues are closely interwoven. If a museum intends to preserve “objects”, it therefore also needs to commit to the territories and their original inhabitants. As a contribution to CoMuse, the partners from Macucu created a “botanical garden” to focus on plant knowledge. The community has been caring for and documenting the garden’s thriving medicinal and dye plants since 2024 – for daily use, for future generations, and for exchange with the museum and partners in Germany.
Exchange, networking and climate justice
In November 2024, a workshop in Macucu featured the production of Carayuru body paint and discussed the garden project as a whole. Another workshop will follow in 2025.
The community’s concern for soil, plants, and sustainability provides numerous connections to Germany. This is why the project will start networking with climate movement initiatives as well as permaculture and alternative cultivation projects in urban and rural areas around Berlin in 2025.
[Translate to English:] Projekt-Info
Region: Vaupés (Colombia)
Community: Escuela Normal Superior Indígena, María Reina, Kotiria-Community Macucu, Kotiria-Community Naná
Cooperation partners: Orlando Villegas, Diana Guzmán, Jaiver Ramírez, Marcia Villegas, Natalia Pavía, Salomón Villegas
Project Management: Andrea Scholz
Research: Yairo Villegas (botany)
Project Funding: different bodies
Project Term: End of 2025
Related projects: