Los Abuelos Árboles y los árboles de nuestros abuelos
Ka'anché or Cama en Alto: Towards the Care and Healing with Plants and Habitats
A Conversation with Gerda Gruber and Anuscheh Amir-Khalili
8. February 2023
11.00-13.00
11.00-13.00
Save the Date
for free
for adults/no registration necessary
in German/in English
We invite you to a conversation with Gerda Gruber and Anuscheh Amir-Khalili on their garden projects evolving around care and healing for the habitat and diverse life forms.
Artist Gerda Gruber experiments with functional sculptures inspired by the Maya technique for cultivation- Ka'anché or Cama en Alto. The ka'anche' is a kind of raised bed used to sow different varieties of plants; it is one of the oldest horticultural techniques of the Maya culture and of generations old family tradition. This technique is used to ensure the growth of fruits, but also of birds and yard animals that generally grew among the Maya families of Southeastern Mexico. Anuscheh Amir-Khalili founded Flamingo e.V. - an association of women from different areas of support work for refugee women*. Since fall 2019, the focus of their work is on the medicinal herb garden project "Hevrîn Xelef" in Neukölln. It is a partner project with the women's village of Jinwar in northern Syria (Rojava). There they have established the project "Sîfa Jin", which aims to build a health center for refugee women and children.
This conversation is first in a series of herbal garden propagation sessions to create a common space of self-organized or communal gardeners, medicinal herbalists and healers from diverse practices. Traditional knowledges around healing involve various ideas about the achievement of cosmological balance as a measure of wellness. And therefore, the conversations explore how varied knowledges are not limited to herbal remedies for illness, but also include aspects of connections between communities and various plants, traditions and values, and rules and behaviours deemed necessary for good health, as well as social support and structures necessary for healthcare delivery.
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.
Anuscheh Amir-Khalili
Anuscheh Amir-Khalili studied social and cultural anthropology at the FU Berlin. Previously she worked in the field of film and media education in Bremen, Hannover, Valencia and Berlin. After a research stay on the Greek island of Lesbos, she founded the association Flamingo e.V. - Network for Refugee Women* and Children in 2015. In addition to the medicinal herb garden Hevrin Khalaf, she built up the social entrepreneurship Band of Sisters. Anuscheh Amir-Khalili has been a research associate at anstiftung since 2022 and is the contact person for intercultural gardens.
