It’s not just a book, it is the memories of a people, their customs, their knowledge, their legacy, the identity of an island that has found the perpetuity of its knowledge in Caminandar.
¿WHAT IS CAMINANDAR?
It is an expanded book created from the encounter between two social interfaces: on the one hand, the black community of the island of La Plata in Bahía Málaga, located
in the municipality of Buenaventura, Colombia, a fascinating territory for its culture, biodiversity, its ancestral knowledge and for the creativity of its inhabitants; and, on the other hand, the Hypermedia Laboratory —HiperLab— of the Universidad del Valle, a community of researchers that is committed to the critical and aesthetic use of media and technologies to generate artistic works with a marked social line. An interface that allowed the creation of a transmedia narrative built from different field diaries, photographs, illustrations, with recipes to cure all kinds of ills, poems, songs, and a virtual reality documentary to immerse yourself in the daily life of the territory.
It is an expanded book created from the encounter between two social interfaces: on the one hand, the black community of the island of La Plata in Bahía Málaga, located
in the municipality of Buenaventura, Colombia, a fascinating territory for its culture, biodiversity, its ancestral knowledge and for the creativity of its inhabitants; and, on the other hand, the Hypermedia Laboratory —HiperLab— of the Universidad del Valle, a community of researchers that is committed to the critical and aesthetic use of media and technologies to generate artistic works with a marked social line. An interface that allowed the creation of a transmedia narrative built from different field diaries, photographs, illustrations, with recipes to cure all kinds of ills, poems, songs, and a virtual reality documentary to immerse yourself in the daily life of the territory.
¿WHY AND FOR WHAT?
On this occasion, we propose the work Caminandar, an editorial project that seeks to highlight the ancestral and cultural legacy of the black communities of the Colombian South Pacific. The fieldwork has been developed on the Isla de la Plata (Málaga Bay) located in the URAMBA National Natural Park, Valle del Cauca department, Buenaventura municipality, a territory characterized by the creative potential of its inhabitants and by exuberant biodiversity in fauna and Flora.
The problem that this community currently faces is the lack of tools for the protection and preservation of its cultural legacy. Their ancient creation practices are dying along with their elders. The book is then a resistance to the passage of time and the force of the jungle that threatens to swallow everything, taking with itself the oldest and most mysterious secrets as the elders call it. Navel newborns to impose powers and forces of nature and animals, cure the bite of spiders and snakes, the midwifery that helped each and every one of its inhabitants to be born, the music to the sound of the bass drum and the marimba , and the stories about giant fish that punished bad behavior. Taking care of walking is knowing the root and straightening the branch, it is maintaining what is essential to sustain an island tucked deep in the Bay of Malaga where only the fortress of memory holds the memory of the old wooden boat builders, not just any wood, wood cut in the new moon and at the time the elder says.
Caminandar is a resistance created by all, a question about the origin and a box that will seek to protect a legacy that is dying but still standing. Empathy and recognition to turn everyday life into a practice of creation, in the recognition of the other and therefore of ourselves.
Installed at:
XV Festival Internacional de la Imagen
Manizales, Colombia
Directed by:
Christian Lizarralde
Professor of Universidad del Valle, Director HiperLab, artist and visual researcher.
¿WHAT YOU WILL FIND?
Caminandar is a non-linear route in which you can navigate to and from where interest takes you. It is divided into 3 main routes that within themselves contain ancestral knowledge, poems, recipes, explanatory illustrations, stories, chronicles, interview sections and, finally, it contains a virtual reality documentary that you can enjoy, either with a VR viewer or from your screen.
Multimedia gallery
Click on the image to see the expanded book
