Arquitecturas de Buen-Vivir Planetario 2.0 An experiential inquiry into the values, practices, and belief systems that express and protect the interconnectedness of all life.

Photo: Alfonsina Granados Maestre

rearc institute’s second symposium in Colombia will move forward an ongoing inquiry into Indigenous values, practices, and belief systems that express and protect the interconnectedness of all life, which we engage through the concept of planetary well-being.

In this place and context, our entry point is to honor the Andean existential framework of “buen vivir,” which encompasses the importance of balance, reciprocity, and human beings’ particular responsibility as stewards of earth’s other life forms. The program’s speakers will once again bring together intercultural and interdisciplinary methods for comprehending and also expanding the discourse and praxis around these topics, cultivating a space of open-mindedness and circular, mutual learning.

This time, the symposium will take place over three days; the first two days of conversations and presentations will be hosted at Casa Lolita in Bogotá; the third day will comprise a series of interactive and site-specific workshops hosted by Fundación Organizmo in Tenjo, Cundinamarca.

Sessions will be facilitated in English and Spanish, with respective live translations. On November 2, we will provide transportation to and from Fundacion Organizmo departing from Casa Lolita at 7am and returning by 9pm.

Program/Schedule

October 31

Our program’s opening conversation will be an intercultural exchange with activist Marilyn Machado Mosquera, journalist Sher Herrera, and Kitambo/—a Bogotá-based organization bridging Africa and Latin America by promoting collaboration between African and Colombian artists through storytelling and creative exchange programs. Machado Mosquera is the founder of El Proceso de Comunidades Negras, which is among the foremost organizations advocating for the cultural, linguistic, and ecological rights of Afro-Colombian communities. This dialogue will engage her research in sociology, human rights, and movement-building, as well as Indigenous philosophies such as buen vivir and Ubuntu, which finds critical and interdisciplinary connection points between non-Western thought frameworks and their related lifestyles.
Born in Cali and with roots in northern Cauca, Mayra Alejandra Mina is a poet, viche maker, self-taught artist, cultural manager, popular researcher, and community audiovisual producer. She will situate the evening's conversation with an opening Viche Encounter and poetry reading.

Marilyn Machado Mosquera

Kitambo/

Sher Herrera

Maja Mina

November 1

This cohort of presentations will feature the voices of scholars and activists alongside re:arc collaborators. Each speaker will present an aspect of their practice in connection to the gathering’s thematic concerns and with attention to the geographies in which they are living and working.

Oasis Urbano

Arquitectas Colombianas

WAI Think Tank

Gabriela de Matos

COMUNAL

Island City Lab

Red Comunitaria Trans

November 2

This workshop will be a journey through the origins, traditions, and worldviews that accompany earthen construction techniques. The earth gives us a body to contain, unite, and sustain; in turn, in the earth’s material, structure, and plasticity, we find shelters to inhabit, ovens to heat, containers to store, pots to cook, and vessels to bury what we leave behind. When we wield clay, we pinch the world.
Facilitated by Ana María Gutiérrez, Director Fundación Organizmo; María Cano, Ceramist
This workshop will explore ecological restoration through listening and observation, in order to better understand the processes, rhythms, dynamics, and cycles that are established through cooperation and dedication. A territory is made up of the multiplicity of species that inhabit it, and the network of relationships established between them. Restoration is allowing a place to also restore us.
Facilitated by Mateo Hernández, Naturalist and Environmental Consultant
This workshop will present the food garden as a forest for the sake of understanding pollinators, seeding, harvesting, composting, eating, and being eaten. This experience will allow us to reenact participatory dynamics and behaviors while creating concrete actions towards the development of sustainable interactions. Each co-creation process becomes a living school for powerful interconnectivities.
Facilitated by William Fonque, Agroecologist; Cristina Consuegra Anthropologist and Chef; Juliana Van Hemelryck, Architect and specialist in ferments; Manuela del Alma, Poet and Cook
This workshop will frame plants as the bridge to a better understanding of our territory and our body, and encourage us to remember the profound benefits of interconnection with the intelligence of nature. Approaching plants with respect and recognition for their healing strength and medicinal properties, participants will experience the alchemy of distillation while creating hydrolats and essential oils, as well as other interactions that connect plants’ many benefits.
Facilitated by Natalia Salamanca, Artist and Environmental Consultor
The Periferia Company’s search for movement and choreographic language is born from the dialogue between many different elements and artistic traditions. This workshop is an invitation to explore the idea of “body architectures in motion.” Through active listening to the toroidal space of the House of Thought and the territorial environment of Organizmo, the purpose will be to create a collective ritual experience.
Facilitated by Lobadys Pérez, Choreographer, Dancer, Founder of The Periferia Company