SEMILLAS

Years: 2011-2013

Location: Tzucacab, MX

Medium: Photography, Community Organizing, Seed Saving, teaching, Participatory Action research

The Semillas project is a participatory action research project that focuses on peoples relationship to biodiversity and to the changes in climate, political economy, and culture happening today. It is based in Tzucacab, a municipality in the south of Yucatan state, and located in the geographical center of the Yucatan peninsula. Like the communities around it, the people of Tzucacab are indigenous Mayans and most families make their living from some mix of traditional agriculture and other sources of income. We work with this one community, rather than involving many communities, because the relationship based nature of our participatory action research approach requires a deeper kind of engagement with the community. This includes building long-term relationships with many community members and building trust with individuals and with the community at large, training and working with local experts and researchers, engaging in the work of cultural work through story, images, and community led data collection and sharing.

Semillas is a collaborative project that uses approaches from both arts and science to address complex and interrelated questions. I As we started working in Tzucacab, the the most interesting questions we were confronted with seemed to fall outside of the realm of either art or science, that is, we doubted that we could get satisfactory answers to the big questions we wanted to ask using either scientific or artistic inquiry on their own. We have found that both art and science offer concrete tools for collecting complementary data, sharing critical thought, and developing both our own and the capacity of our collaborators in Tzucacab work to advocate for themselves and their communities.

Made possible by Collaborators and Funders:

Devon Sampson, Rosi Camaal, Universidad Autonomia de Yucatan, University of California Santa Cruz, Caitlin Phillips, Community Agroecology Network, Leonor Dzul Uc, Gilberto Jiminex Chi, Fullbright, Education and Sustainability Fund,