Humberto Ak'abal
collaborators
Through its facilitation processes, Spore is working with a network of people, organizations, and communities. Every list of names is inherently incomplete. As with every process, it is constantly growing.
Humberto Ak'abal was born in Momostenango, Guatemala in 1952 and passed away on 28 January 2019. Ak'abal, was a Maya' K'iche' poet and Guatemalan writer. He created and wrote his poems in the K'iche' language and self-translated them into Spanish. He was one of the most renowned Guatemalan poets in Europe and South America. His works have been translated into French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, Scottish, Hungarian, Estonian, in more than 20 languages.
Daniel Aspuru
Multi-instrumentalist musician, music producer, sound engineer, electronics designer and software author. Founding member of the band "El Gabinete" and collaborator of the Laboratorio de Investigación en Resonancia y expresión de la Naturaleza.
Estela Ay Chan
Artisan, painter from the town of Yaxuná, Yaxcabá, Yucatán. She is the founder of the Sanestel workshop: wood crafts; a place where she shares her knowledge with her daughters.
Mina Bárcenas
Graduated with a Master's Degree in Production and Teaching of Visual Arts from the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán, and in Engineering in Automated Management Systems from the Instituto Superior Politécnico de La Habana. She has designed for different editorial, cultural, educational and scientific diffusion projects for different national and international entities. In addition to teaching, she is creative director of Myra Diseño and Página en Blando.
Rocío Bárcenas
Andrea del Rocío Bárcenas García, June 17, 1991, State of Mexico, Mexico. Biologist, nature lover, turtles, good food and music. My field of action is focused on biodiversity conservation, where I have had the opportunity to address the issue from academic and governmental research. I work with communities through environmental education and art. I believe that education is the best tool to share and transform our ways of thinking and valuing nature.
BAUFACHFRAU Berlin e.V.
BAUFACHFRAU Berlin e.V. is a recognized education and qualification provider that develops and implements projects within the framework of employment promotion and education policy at local, regional and European level.
Since the association was founded in 1988, female craftsmen, planners and designers have been working together to develop projects in the fields of sustainable construction and climate protection, education for sustainable development (ESD), the design of learning and living spaces, participation, interculture and lifelong learning.
Anaïs Beaulieu
French artist Anaïs Beaulieu learnt the craft of embroidery from her grandmother, a practice passed on through multiple generations of women in her family. She explored children’s books and art education by working at the publishing house Les Trois Ourses in France. Anaïs’ work is also informed by her travels, especially in Africa, which strengthened her interest in craft and the links it can create between people. It was also here that she resumed her childhood love for embroidery, and where the idea for this book was germinated.
Oksana Bila
Oksana Bila, June 13, 1981 Lviv, Ukraine. Teacher in the area of choir conducting and choir artist, music teacher. She is also an assistant music teacher area specialist in basic education and director of music in a children's educational institution. She worked as a music director in children's educational institutions in Lviv, Ukraine (children 3-6 years old). For almost 2 years she was a choir director in a Greek-Catholic church. Last years before traveling to Mexico she worked in schools (children 15-18) as music director. She carried out different arts activities with students such as choir, dances, music.
Regina Carolina Caamal Yah
Meliponiculturist of Peanut. She works in her melipon farm "Las abejas de mi abuelo" (My grandfather's bees); she is part of the UYK meliponculturist network.
Carolina Camacho Villa
Carolina Camacho Villa has an interdisciplinary profile in agronomy, genetic resources and rural sociology. She studies topics such as traditional farming systems, agrobiodiversity and technological change in agriculture.
Daniela Esther Cano Chan
Daniela Esther Cano Chan, is a writer in the Mayan language, a reading promoter, a teacher for informatics and a graduate in primary education for the indigenous environment, originally from Tipikal, Maní, Yucatán.
Marisol Castro
Graduate in Visual Arts. Her work fuses the anthropology and graphic aesthetics of cities. She has been selected in the biennials of Arte Joven (Aguascalientes, Mexico) and Pequeña Estampa (Quito, Ecuador). She has exhibited at the Museo Nacional de la Estampa (CDMX) and, more recently, at the Museo de Arte Moderno Ceniceros, Durango.
Omar Said Charruf
Omar Said Charruf (Mexico City, 1980) lives and works in Mérida, Yucatán. He is a visual artist and photographer. He studied art education at the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán, at the Escuela Activa de Fotografía, at the Centro de la Imagen and at the Escuela de Cine Arte 7. His works have been exhibited in various national and international museums, galleries and public spaces. He has received several awards for his works.
María Elisa Chavarrea Chim
María Elisa Chavarrea Chim is a Mayan language speaking poet, radio host, teacher and anthropologist from Chumayel Yucatán. Her work has focused on the revitalization of Mayan language and Mayan community organizing processes in Yucatán.
José Chi Dzul
José Chi Dzul, originally from Dzan, Yucatán, Mexico, holds a degree in Visual Arts from the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán. His multifaceted practice includes works ranging from large-scale drawings, text-based works and installations, often reading between the lines through clever wordplay and objects. "I work with the Mayan language as a tool for cultural decolonisation, as identity, conservation and political interference. It is a clear expression of contemporary Mayas, exercising the inheritance and the knowledge of our grandparents. Where the legacy becomes present."
Abrahán Jesus Collí Tun
Intercultural manager, researcher and teacher. He has developed and led research projects and facilitates programs for the dissemination of knowledges. He collaborates with Spore Initiative mainly in the Yucatan Peninsula for the development and coordination of projects and supports in ongoing tasks.
Emilio Cordero Checa
Lighting designer, sound artist, and creative technician, dedicated to the production and creation of light-sound installations and interdisciplinary performing art pieces. His work focuses on the interaction between live performances and new technologies using light and sound to conjugate mechanics and human interaction on stage. He holds a Master´s degree with Honours in Contemporary, Technological and Performing Arts from the Basque Country University. His work has been shown in various theaters and festivals in Ecuador, Spain, United States, and Germany and he has also collaborated with international events like Fête des lumières (Lyon – France), Fiesta de la Luz (Quito- Ecuador), BAD (Bilbao- Spain), VAQ (Quito- Ecuador), Land Art Biennal (Andorra), Berlinale (Berlin - Germany), among others. Currently, he lives in Berlin where he is collaborating with different art collectives and spaces, as well as dance, performance and theater companies. Emilio is also a co-producer and lighting designer for Culiner Creative Circle, an audiovisual production company focused on classical music in its various branches.
María (Doña Neby) Cruz Torres Tzab
María Cruz Torres Tzab, or Doña Neby, from Maní, Yucatán, has been a Melipona beekeeper for twelve years and works at the agroecological school U Yits Ka'an. Her work focuses on informing and educating children, young people and adults from different communities in the region about the care of Melipona bees and their vital importance for the environment.
Santiago da Silva
Stoodio Santiago da Silva works on book design, printed/digital matter, communication, and display systems within the cultural and contemporary art context. During the last 10 years, research, experimentation and dialogue, have led to a varied visual vocabulary and a specialisation in manufacturing processes which inform the work.
The studio’s infrastructure is based on an extended network of fellow designers. For the project at Spore Initiative, the team is conformed by Cecilia Breña, Mona Mayer, Moritz Appich, Otso Paresaari and Santiago da Silva.
Fátima del Carmen Castillo Torres
Fátima del Carmen Castillo Torres, originally from Maní, Yucatán, built, motivated by her former studies at the U Yits Ka'an School of Ecological Agriculture and based on her own health problems, together with her family the Solar Maya "U Lu'umil Kuxtal", which takes up ancient Mayan traditional practices as a self-sustainable source of food, natural products and energy, in a responsible way with the environment.
Julián Dzul Nah
Intercultural manager, researcher and teacher. He has coordinated and led various research and participatory action research projects. He works with the Spore Initiative in the areas of process development, workshop facilitation and coordination, and acts as contact person and interface between various local and supra-regional actors and partners. During his academic career, he has already published several papers and received awards for his scientific work. He is passionate about ethnographic photography.
Mario Euán Chan
Farmer, works the land under the milpa agricultural system, is a traditional Mayan doctor.
María José Ferrada
María José Ferrada is a writer and journalist. His children's books and novels for adults have been published in several languages.
Gabriela Galván
Gabriela Galván is a visual artist, radio producer and Djane. Her practice takes place between the intersections of sound, drawing and fiction as a detonator of possibilities, insinuations and questions. She is currently doing multidisciplinary work at Laboratorio de Investigación en Resonancia y expresión de la Naturaleza and the Chakanais collective.
Emilio Gálvez y Fuentes
Is a music productor and sound engineer. In addition to his multidisciplinary work with various artists and musicians, he heads the recording studio, sound projects and field expedition logistics of the Laboratory of Research in Resonance and Expression of Nature. (Currently based in Berlin).
Vanessa Gamboa González
Vanessa Gamboa González is a nutritionist that works with food and health sovereignty. She has been working for over a decade on different initiatives involving Mayan families and communities in the Yucatan peninsula.
Alejandro García "Ilho"
Alejandro García is director of composite, 3D and motion graphics at Llamarada. He has worked in the making and post production of multiple short films and animated projects. Passionate about bitcoin and master of rendering.
Alejandro García "Male"
Alejandro García is animation director at Llamarada. He has directed various animated short films such as Santolo, El Jardín de las Delicias, Mi brother Luca or Las tardes de Tintico. The latter, winner of Best Animated Short at FICM Morelia 2012.
Gerda Gruber
Gerda Gruber is a visual artist who has lived and worked in Mexico since 1975 (in Yucatán since 1988). In 2001 she founded the Fundación Gruber Jez, Educación y Promoción en Artes Plásticas (Gruber Jez Foundation, Education and Promotion of Plastic Arts) with the aim of providing research and experimentation residencies for visual artists. In 2004, she was part of the founding project of the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán (ESAY), where she has since directed the sculpture workshop.
Pedro Guerra
Pedro Guerra (Pedro Guerra Jordán) (geb. 1857, gest. 1917) war ein Pionier der Fotografie in der Region Yucatán in Mexiko. Sein Atelier befand sich vom letzten Viertel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts bis 1917 in Mérida. Er fotografierte das gesellschaftliche und berufliche Leben, die Henneken-Industrie, die Zeit der Revolution und archäologische Maya-Stätten in Mérida und anderen Teilen Yucatáns.
Şermin Güven
Şermin Güven is an anthropologist with a focus onof human and environmental relationships. She is currently researching on water and political scarcity in the conflict area in Syria and Iraq. She is active in various initiatives such as the Kurdish Women's Office for Peace /Berlin, "Hevrîn Xelef" - a medicinal herb garden project of Flamingo e.V based in Berlin/Neukölln and she is also a part of the World Youth Parliament for Water.
Ariel Guzik
Ariel Guzik is a Mexican musician, draftsman and designer of machines and instruments. He is dedicated to the study of nature, physics and traditional Mexican herbal medicine. He is the founder of the Laboratorio de Investigación en Resonancia y Expresión de la Naturaleza (Nature Expression and Resonance Research Laboratory).
Matías Hoil Tzuc
Matías Hoil Tzuc is from the Mayan village of Chechmil, Chemax, Yucatán, and is a freelance researcher and native Yucatecan Mayan speaker who writes and translates in his mother tongue. He leads cultural projects and works with youth and students to promote Maya-Milpa and his own culture (language, traditional medicine, rights, gender, etc.). He is a farmer in the Maya-Milpa system, has recently taken up beekeeping and participates in projects on agroecology and ecological production systems.
Iván Jiménez
He is part of the group U neek' ts'íib, a community epigraphy youth group dedicated to the community interpretation of glyphs from their own cosmovision.
Roseli Jiménez Balam
Mayan youth. From the Xtak'anil group she gives workshops to young people, children and adults for the preservation of memory and care of the land.
Catalina Juárez
Works in the fields of art, environment, ecology, psychoanalysis, pedagogy and philosophy. She is in charge of management, dissemination, production and logistics of projects, expeditions and exhibitions at the Research in Resonance and Expression of Nature.
Ángel Rafael Kú Dzul
We, Ángel Kú and Valiana Hernández, lead a collective (Colectivo Suumil Mookt'an) of young people who are part of a generation that is returning to the land. We are going back in order to reconnect with our Maya ways of building, cultivating the milpa, caring for the seeds and the native bees, so that together we can reinvent our ways of inhabiting the territory.
Marcelo León
Farmer, promoter of U yits Ka'an in southern Yucatan, member of the Comerciando como Hermanos network.
Llamarada
Mexican animation studio strongly influenced by local artistic expressions, Mexican popular culture, animation and contemporary cinematography. His work, recognized nationally and internationally, is based on author, culture and advertising short films.
Rodrigo Llanes Salazar
Rodrigo Llanes Salazar is a PhD in Anthropological Sciences, and a full-time researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His research focuses on the history of anthropology in Mexico, ethnicity, indigenous movements and the anthropology of human rights. His publications include the book „De la reforma multicultural a los megaproyectos: los derechos humanos del pueblo maya de Yucatán”.
Mikhail Lylov
Mikhail Lylov is an artist, filmmaker, researcher and gardener. In his work he develops practical, theoretical and artistic interpretations of what “ecology” could mean, if we look beyond the notion of “system”. He is interested in stories, histories, travels and pathways of plants, animals and tools to trace how material relationships of things and bodies in movement interact with social relationships in their becoming. Mikhail studied gardening and engaged with the topics of landscape ecology while working in Japan. For a number of years he collaborated on an experimental gardening and orchard project in the Madonie mountains of Sicily.
Tania Eulalia Martínez Cruz
Tania Eulalia Martínez Cruz is an indigenous Ëyuujk researcher with an interdisciplinary profile in agricultural engineering, water and irrigation management and social sciences. She has more than 10 years working with different NGOs on international development issues in a wide range of topics, from sanitary engineering to social inclusion.
Patricia Martín Morales
Maya artisan and calligrapher from Muna, Yucatán. Together with her husband, Julián Magaña, and their sons, Adrián and Julián, they reproduce pre-Hispanic Maya ceramic pieces and codices in their workshop using Maya techniques and materials. Her work is recognized worldwide by archaeologists and universities, and has been exhibited in different museums and institutions of international stature.
Miguel Mejía
Specialist in the management of beneficial microorganisms for ariculture. He is currently in charge of the "Bernardo Xiu Uc" Laboratory at U Yits Ka'an, an institution where he has been collaborating for 14 years.
Melissa Meléndez
Melissa Meléndez studied Communication Sciences at UVM. She has been a producer at Llamarada for 10 years, participating in various animated projects of a cultural, educational and advertising nature.
Francisca Moo
Traditional physician, melipon breeder, promoter and member of the UYK network of melipon breeders in the eastern part of the state.
Cecilia Moo
Cecilia Ivonne Moo Pérez has a degree in Fine Arts from the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán, specialising in drawing, painting and scientific illustration. She is a teacher and cultural manager. She works in different disciplines, combining her artistic vision with the elements of nature and the regional life that surrounds her. She lives and works in the Yucatan Peninsula.
José Daniel Morales
José Daniel Morales studied Design and Visual Communication at the Faculty of Arts and Design at UNAM. He's an Art Director at Llamarada, a cartoonist and a full-time dad (all at the same time).
Inés Ortiz Yam
Inés Ortiz Yam holds a PhD in history from El Colegio de México. Her research interests are the political, social and agrarian history of Yucatán in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is the author of the book "De milperos a henequeneros. Yucatán, 1870-1937" (2013). Currently she works as a professor-researcher at the Social Sciences Department at the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales "Dr. Hideyo Noguchi" of the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.
Adriana Otero Puerto
Adriana Otero Puerto is an audiovisual producer and works currently as a director at the production and distribution company ABEJAS CINE, and as an independent editor, sound recordist and post-producer. Among her works are "El Valor de la Tierra" (2014), "¿Qué les pasó a las abejas? (2019) and "Boca de Culebra" (2020).
Pädagogische Werkstatt
The Pädagogische Werkstatt is a socio-spatially oriented, institutionalized support system for educational actors in the Reuter and Donau neighborhoods of Neukölln, which emerged in 2007 from the program Ein Quadratkilometer Bildung (One Square Kilometer of Education). Its goal is to work toward equitable educational opportunities for all children and young people by building local educational networks.
Diogo Passarinho
D_P_S is a research-based design studio, founded in 2015 by Diogo Passarinho, investigating how emotional contexts can be brought into shaping spatial memories. The work of the studio has been showcased at the Venice Biennale, Gwangju Biennale, Baltic Triennial, Hayward Gallery, Palais De Tokyo, Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Oslo National Museum, Van Abbemuseum, to name a few examples.
Team for exhibition at Spore: Gonçalo Reynolds and Diogo Passarinho.
Severiana Pat Tun
She is originally from Tekom, Yucatan. Dedicated to the rescue of the melipona bee, soil improvement for orchards, and handmade products derived from native bee honey. Her site has a sanctuary of honey trees and a botanical garden with medicinal species.
Adolfo Pech
Promoter of U Yits Ka'an, School of Ecological Agriculture, at the eastern headquarters in Valladolid.
Alejandro Ramírez López
Alejandro Ramŕez López is of Mixtec origin and born in the state of Oaxaca. He is an independent researcher with more than 20 years of experience in international development, in the implementation of agricultual projects in Latin America, and as a teacher. He has been a consultant, partner and asistent researcher in the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (International Center for the Improvement of Maize and Wheat), where he participated in a variety of social researches in several regions in Mexico and Latin America.
Vanessa Rivero
Vanessa Rivero is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Yucatán, Mexico. Using different media such as sculpture, photography, video and book publishing, she conceives site-specific installations and visual essays that explore ways of perceiving nature from individual and collective experience, power structures and the possibilities of coexistence between diverse species. She has exhibited her work in national and international venues, and holds a Master's degree in Production and Teaching of Visual Arts from the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán.
Rafiki Sánchez
Rafiki Sánchez works in the context of Mérida, Yucatán. Using a variety of materials such as found objects, textile tapestry, natural fibres, earth, ashes and others, Sánchez’s practice is often linked to the question of residues and wastes, examining the wastelands and dump yards, where he delves into poetics from decaying objects. Starting from drawing and often moving on to a performance, his work explores the possibilities of weaving, clothing, and its convergence with body, incorporating the materials and landscape typical of his region.
A. Sasil Sánchez Ch
A. Sasil Sánchez Ch is a poet, translator, editor and host in the Mayan peninsular language. Dedicated to creative writing and the revitalization of language and early childhood education in the southern Yucatan region.
Alfredo Serralta
Farmer, Melipona-beekeeper, Citriculturist in the village Dzan, Yucatan. Promoter and former administrator of the Escuela de Agricultura Ecológica U Yits Ka'an.
Roger Laureano Súarez Serralta
Artisan, potter from Ticul, Yucatan. He has been distinguished as Grand Master of Mexican Folk Art. He excels in the creation of Maya ceremonial plates and vases with natural pigmentation based on products of the region.
Marvin Systermans
Photographer, Artist, Communication Designer from Cologne, working between Berlin and Barranquilla. His artistic work revolves around the complex human relationship with our urban and natural environment and the conditions we create for our coexistence. He works with the Spore Initiative in the field of digital communication since 2022.
Emilio Torres
Farmer, meliponiculturist, deputy director of U yits Ka'an.
Marta Uc
Marta Uc, originally from Yucatan, is an independent film editor, mainly of documentaries.
Pedro Uc Be
Pedro Uc Be is a Mexican writer in Mayan language, poet, storyteller, translator and activist.
Valiana Alejandra Aguilar Hernández
Angel Ku and Valiana Aguilar. We lead a collective of young people who are part of an eneration that is returning to the land. We are returning to reconnect with our Mayan ways of building, cultivating the cornfield, caring for the seeds and the native bees, so that together we can reinvent our ways of inhabiting the territory.
Willem van den Hoek
Willem van den Hoek works with wood. He creates functional and artistic big scale structures, furniture and minimal objects. Sustainability is fundamental in each project that van den Hoek undertakes; through the reuse of materials and the salvatage/re-invention of existing wood constructions he has designed and developed works for Savvy Contemporary, Berlinale´s Forum Expanded, HAU & Hamburger Bahnhof among many other institutions, as well as community engaged projects such as collaborations with Kotti-Shop Project Space, Netzwerk Nachsorge (NeNa e.V.) & Trial and Error. His most personal work is framed as Still.Re.mains.
Mayur & Tashur Vayeda
Artists and siblings from the Warli community of Western India, Mayur (b.1992) and Tushar Vayeda (b. 1987) practice Warli art, adapting its form and vocabulary for the contemporary audience. Preserving distinctive elements of Warli painting, their work adds to its visual idiom through oral histories of their community, ritual practices, elements of modern life, cultural legends, myths and folklore.
Mónica Vázquez
Mónica Vázquez is an editor and graphic designer. For more than 25 years she has been dedicated to the research and creation of children's and youth literature in Mexico and Venezuela.
Saúl Villa
Saúl Villa, born in 1958 in Mexico City, studied graphic techniques from 1976 to 1982 with Frank Connelly, Mark Balakjian and Juan José Torralba in London and Barcelona. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in museums and private galleries. His research deals with painting, art education and public policies related to art and culture.
Minelia Guadalupe Xiu Canché
Mayan woman, meliponiculturist and biologist. Her career has been based on the rescue, promotion and promotion of the xunáan kab bee, promoting the identity of Mayan women in this activity.
Ola Zielińska
Ola Zielińska works as an artist, designer and curator. Within these practices she places her focus on “supported structures” - the infrastructures for silenced matters and voices, urgent questions and foremost - embodied ideas. She is interested in formulating (a)new models of collaboration by combining knowledges from different fields. Author of scenographies, sound projects, radio pieces and performances. She is a member of SAVVY Contemporary, part of Otucha Collective, co-founder of Duchini Bei duo and Nuvola sound project. Based between Poland and Berlin.