Javier Aguilar
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.
Valeria Aguilar Hernández
Najwa Ahmed
Najwa Ahmed is a Palestinian filmmaker and writer whose work weaves together themes of the homeland, memory and displacement attempting to use their art as an anti-colonial instrument. Their films have been shown at many spaces including Sinema Transtopia and Hungry Eyes Festival. Their writings have been published by CFFP, visual Vers and Jeem, amongst other platforms.
Humberto Ak'abal
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.
Ricardo Arzápalo
Abeni Asante
Abeni is rooted in movements of anti-racism, gender liberation, and environmental justice.
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.
Julia Bar-Tal
Julia Bar-Tal, farmer from Brandenburg, is executive director of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft Nordost (Germanchapter of La Via Campesina), co-founder of the Bündnis junge Landwirtschaft, which has a focus on the struggle to fair access to land in eastern Germany, and campaigns for the rights of young farmers. She is also co-founder of 15th Garden Syria. Julia Bar-Tal's activist background is also influenced by her experiences in war and crisis regions. Next to being a farmer in Brandenburg and a representative of farmers here, for the last ten years she has been working intensly on agriculture, food sovereignty and the rights of people in rural areas during times of war and crisis.
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.
Ararat Kollektiv Berlin
Ararat Kollektiv Berlin is an Armenian antifascist collective founded during the Artsakh war in 2020
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.
Samie Blasingame
Samie Blasingame (she/her) is a social justice facilitator with a background in environmental policy, intercultural studies, and creative communications. She regularly curates, hosts and facilitates events on topics related to sustainability, environmental justice, anti-racist decolonization, and ecosystem mapping. She is the Creative Director of Food in my Kiez, sits on the board of Greenbuzz Berlin with who she runs the #FeedingBerlin series, and organises with the Berlin-based climate and environmental justice collective, Black Earth. Her work and political ethos revolves around community building and collective imaginations toward a just and resilient future.
Sofia Burchardi
Sofia Burchardi is an illustrator and art teacher. She grew up in Nepal and received her M.A. at the Royal Danish Art Academy in Denmark. She is a co-founder of the collective “Blue Boat Books”, where she works as an author, illustrator and educator. Currently, she also teaches at the M.I.N.T. “Green Classroom” and at the Rütli Campus.
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.
Edgar Calel
Edgar Calel works in a variety of media, exploring the complexities of the Indigenous experience, as seen through the Maya Kaqchikel cosmovision, spirituality, rituals, community practices, and beliefs, in juxtaposition with the systematic racism and exclusion that the Indigenous People of Guatemala endure on a daily basis.
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.
María José Cárdenas Portillo
Juan Casillas Pinto
Alejandro J. Castilla Pinto
Fátima Castillo
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.
Atilano Ceballos Loeza
Atilano Ceballos Loeza is one of the founders of the Escuela de Agricultura Ecológica (School of Agroecology) U Yits Ka'an in Maní, Yucatán. He is a Catholic priest and part of the Regional Office of Mayan Theology. He advises schools of agriculture and was part of Yakanal, a space for cultural exchange between Maya and other Indigenous communities in the United States of America. He is a Melipona beekeeper himself and coordinates Project Kuxan Suum, which works to raise endemic pigs and Melipona bees in 16 communities in the region. He is an enthusiast of agroecology and the rights of mother earth.
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.
Chepita
Chepita
is a person from Abya Yala who has been learning about plants and food since early childhood as part of life and family interactions. Likes being around nature and enjoys sharing spaces with people getting involved in topics around food and collective knowledges. Also interested in community care, health, climate and social justice and the interconnectedness of this topics in the network of life. Working in playfull ways on recovering health sovereignity through small actions in our daily lives.
Chepita is part of the health collective Casa Kuà in Berlin
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."
POC art Collective
Mauricio Collí Tun
Mauricio Collí Tun is a visual artist and teacher, interested in the processes of artistic creation and research as spaces for reflection and collective learning. His work explores human nature and the different species with which we share places, affections and dreams. Based on his research of Yucatecan peninsular fauna and its symbolic representations he creates multi-species hybridizations of old and contemporary identities. His drawings and engravings deal with different notions of time, memory and permanence. He is based in Yucatan, living and working from within the identity, knowledges and practices of this region.
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.
Daniela de Paulis
Daniela de Paulis is a media artist and a licensed radio operator. Her artistic practice is informed by Space in its widest meaning. She is currently Artist in Residence at the SETI Institute (California) and
Artist in Residence at the Green Bank Observatory (West Virginia), with the support of the Baruch Blumberg Fellowship in Astrobiology. She is the recipient of the Art of Neuroscience Prize 2022 with the project Mare Incognito, and the winner of the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement 2023.
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.
Yekmal e.V.
Der Verein der Eltern aus Kurdistan in Deutschland – kurz Yekmal – wurde 1993 in Berlin gegründet. Seit sei- ner Gründung hat unser Verein mit seinen vielfältigen Projekten im Bereich mehrsprachige Eltern- und Fami- lienarbeit Aufmerksamkeit auf sich gezogen.
Emet Ezell
emet ezell uses poetry to explore questions of place and place-lessness. Winner of the Gloria Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, they are the author of Between Every Bird, Our Bones and the guidebook to Liberation Tarot. Born and raised in Texas, ezell now lives in Berlin, Germany, where they, write, edit, and teach poetry.
Nafis Fathollahzadeh
Fathollahzadeh works at the intersection of artistic research, video art and photography.
They were a fellow researcher in the Rosa Luxemburg scholarly program on Authoritarianism and Counter strategies and affiliated with EUME: Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin. They are art director and co-editor of Momentography of a failure, a multidisciplinary artistic and urban research platform for collaborative thinking, artistic collaborations, digital mapping and publishing.
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.
Foresta Collective
Foresta Collective is a fluid collective of humans and other species, exploring entanglements between personal and relational ecologies. Our work finds expression through collective practices and learning formats, rooted in embodied culture, multispecies care, thinking-through-making, and ongoing apprenticeship with the wild.
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.
Tuline Gülgönen
Tuline Gülgönen is a popular educator and filmmaker. She has participated in numerous collective short films and artistic research projects with children and adults.
Şermin Güven
Şermin Güven is a cultural and social anthropologist with a focus on environment in the Euphrates – Tigris river basin and its inhabitants. As a researcher and regional consultant she focuses her work on ecology, water, river, floods and drought on the one hand and crisis and politics on the other hand. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the Disaster Research Unit/Freie Universität Berlin with a focus on multilayered crisis lead by water scarcity and following the solution agenda of local corporations in Kurdish regions. She is involved in Ceni e.V Women's Office for Peace, Kurd Akad - Kurdish Academics Association. As a board member of the city partnership Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg - Dêrik e.V., Şermin is responsible for projects related to humanitarian crisis and secure water access. She is a member of WYPW-World Youth Parliament for Water and Gender CC - Women for Climate Justice.
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.
Yasmin Jahan Nupur
Yasmin Jahan Nupur is a visual and performance artist whose work is influenced by the ecological and community driven aspects of life. Depicting human relationships from various points of view, her work explores class distinctions and the social discrepancies people face, particularly women and migrants of South Asia, in an effort to increase understanding between people of different backgrounds. Her recent work has engaged deeply with architecture and textile, with a particular focus on Jamdani (a form of hand-woven textile), creating soft sculpture exploring the physical and social constructs affecting her psyche.
Miguel Jara
Miguel Jara is a multidisciplinary artist, animator and cultural researcher born in Colombia and based in Mexico City, actually working mainly on alternative educative approaches to train foundational aspects of learning and comprehension, and by other side, on artistic approaches to promote critical and empathic thinking of different social and environmental subjects. Chief director of Estudio Pneuma (Art animation and video studio) and Submarina MX (environmental education platform).
Miguel Jara
MIGUEL JARA is a multidisciplinary artist, animator and cultural researcher born in Colombia and based in Mexico City, actually working mainly on alternative educative approaches to train foundational aspects of learning and comprehension, and by other side, on artistic approaches to promote critical and empathic thinking of different social and environmental subjects. Chief director of Estudio Pneuma (Art animation and video studio) and Submarina MX (environmental education platform).
Marcel Jean-Baptiste
Marcel Jean-Baptiste is the coordinator of the Permactivie association. Its aim is to set up activities focusing on environmental issues in Martinique. To this end, ecological, artistic and educational experiments are carried out in order to better understand, love and protect Martinique's fragile ecosystem. Marcel is also known as Mawongany, a new cell that he integrates into his creative ecosystem. Here, he experiments as a composer and set designer, working with live performances, sound, image, and art installations.
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.
Dr. Mwatima Juma
Dr. Mwatima Juma is the Chairperson of Tanzania Organic Agriculture Movement (TOAM) and one of the founders of Msonge Organic Family Farm and the Practical Permaculture Institute of Zanzibar. She is one of the leading voices for organic agriculture in Tanzania and Zanzibar. She is on a quest to make Zanzibar 100% organic in all its aspects; to transform local production systems to a permaculture system, becoming regenerative, sustainable and most importantly devoid of all chemical toxins. Juma holds a PhD. in Agronomy and Crop Science from University of London Wye College.
Martina Kolarek
Martina Kolarek is a biochemist, soil scientist and artist. Since 2010 she has been implementing the hot compost process in home, small and community gardens. In 2014 she founded DIE BODEN SCHAFFT as a platform for a new soil culture. Her book "Kompostieren! Biologisch, einfach, schnell" was published by Ulmer Verlag in 2018 and in French translation in 2019.
Karuana Kollektiv
The Karuana is a collective of indigenous women, musical group of artists and activists from the Borari, Kumaruara, Tupinambá, Munduruku and Tapajó ethnic groups in the Baixo-Tapajós region of the Amazon. Protagonists in the fight for climate justice in the territory through art, the collective emerged in 2018 with the mission of echoing the voice of indigenous women to the world in defense of rivers, forests and the rights of indigenous peoples, as well as cultural resistance and the fight for good living. The name Karuana pays homage to the protectors of rivers and forests, the enchanted ones from the bottom of the rivers and the bowels of the forest. The forest is our school of art, which inspires our musical compositions, sung in our indigenous language, nheengatu, and to the rhythm of carimbó, a musical genre of Afro-indigenous origins. Next to the singing praxis the Karuanas promote the occupation and creation of spaces for discussions and experiences, with lots of knowledge, exchanges, listening and respect, with plural issues on territory, indigenous rights, spirituality, contemporary indigenous art and gender.
Zilan Sarah Kößler
The Amed-born youth psychotherapist and children's book author Sarah Zilan Kößler works as a bridge builder between Europe and the democratic women's self-administration structures in North and East Syria (Rojava). For years she has been working closely with JINWAR (a women's village in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria) and WJAS (WJAS, Foundation of Free Women in Rojava). She is active both as a member of KONGREYA STAR (association of women's organizations in North and East Syria) in Germany and in civil society women's projects in Europe such as Women defend Rojova, Jineoloji Committee.
Sarah Zilan Kößler works in the health center GEKO Neukölln as a psychosocial counselor for refugees and gives workshops in Germany and Europe for various initiatives, associations and organizations on democratic structures in North and East Syria, JINWAR, JINEOLOJI (science of women), feminism, ecology, art and creates art and performances in the context of art and resistance. She has professional experience working with women's initiatives worldwide such as:
Oidho (a human rights organization of indigenous peoples) Oaxaca/Mexico, the Research Center against Violence against Women, La Paz/Bolivia and the Maxmur refugee camp in Erbil/Iraq, JINWAR AND WJAS , series of events and Jinwar exhibitions in Barcelona, Sicily Performance on the Kurdish Women's Movement at the Art Academy, Bergen/Norway
Zilan's son reminds her every day of the potential for a better world.
With her unwavering commitment to innovative ways of creating a vibrant and harmonious future, she wants to protect children without creating barriers around them. Her mission is to help the rising generation grow up resilient and courageous in a world characterized by uncertainty.
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.
Simone Lagrand
Simone Lagrand (Martinique) is a poet, spoken word artist, and creative writing workshop facilitator. Her work is a long conversation with her motherland Martinique. As a yich déwò (illegitimate child from abroad) she constantly intends to build a creative biotope which shelters her dual relationship with language (Creole and French) through the observation of intimate bonds such as love dialogues, eroticism, but also motherhood. Her poetry uses various medium such as embroidery, sonic landscaping, or video. She lives between Paris and Martinique.
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.
Hani Mojtahedy
Kurdish artist Hani Mojtahedy is a household name in Kurdistan and a rising star in the World Music scene. Hailing from Sanandaj; a small city in the Iranian province Kordestân, Mojtahedy studied traditional Persian music, and in 2000 she launched her professional singing career. She has since released two albums, over twenty singles, and several music videos. Mojtahedy performed in TV shows, concerts and festivals all over the world with a mix of traditional and original repertoire in which she brings together traditional Persian vocals and Kurdish lyrics.
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.
Francisca Moo
Traditional physician, melipon breeder, promoter and member of the UYK network of melipon breeders in the eastern part of the state.
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).
Brusco Nando
Nando Brusco is a singer, drum player and storyteller. Having been involved in the field of popular music for years, his artistic research revolves mainly around the drum and its evocative capacity, its “voice.” In his performances, Nando merges the cultural, narrative, and literary aspects of this local culture, that is most of all present in the oral memories, whose bearer he is. v
Juan Nasra
Juan Nasra is an Argentinian image and sound designer and documentary filmmaker. He has predominantly worked within the cinematography domain, contributing to a diverse array of projects spanning fiction, documentary, dance, and music videos.
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).
Anthony Owosekun
Anthony Owosekun is a social worker and experiential educator with over 10 years of experience in supporting young people in the education sector. In 2019, he founded the non-profit organisation EMPOCA, which connects Black children and young people with nature. Since 2022, he has been co-founder of the DE_CONSTRUCT Academy, a digital training platform for raising awareness of racism among specialist and management staff in the corporate, education and healthcare sectors. As an educational consultant, he regularly leads training courses on racism-sensitive and empowering learning spaces for educators in schools, youth welfare and leisure facilities.
Asiye Özer
In 2008 Asiye completed her undergraduate studies at the State Conservatory of Dicle University with first degree honors. She has worked as a singer, an instrumentalist and a music teacher. In 2015, upon completing her master's degree in musicology at the Institute of Social Sciences of Erzurum Atatürk University, she began her doctoral training. Her main fields of activity in Turkey have been youth welfare and social work and teaching.
She has always accompanied the people living in Kurdish areas with music and learning, and along the way often had the opportunity to support and encourage them in solving their sociopolitical issues.
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.
Venuri Perera
Venuri Perera is a Colombo based choreographer, performance artist and movement facilitator. Her works inhabit a space between dance, live art and theatre, and have dealt with issues of violent nationalism, patriarchy, borders, colonial inheritance, class and power dynamics of gaze. Primarily trained in Kandyan dance, Venuri was a member of Chitrasena Dance Company for 13 years.
Dharmendra Prasad
Dharmendra Prasad is an artist based in Guwahati, with a practice spanning across mediums of installation, video, painting, photography, performance. Dharmendra’s practice takes the Harvest as a ‘philosophical take-off’, where his artistic intention lies in cultivating and re-configuring understandings around Agrarian practices, rural memory and knowledge, and in extension, the ecologies that foreground and inform the dividing ‘digital/ technological psyche’. The accumulation of meaning in this rich metaphor is also evident in his use of hay and other forms of ‘harvest material/ waste’ as recurring material and medium. There is a running engagement with indigenous knowledge systems and farming practices, bringing a solid grounding to his artistic practice.
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.
Mariam Rasheed
Born in Alexandria, Mariam Rasheed is an artist and scientist based in Berlin. Through poetry, she echoes the absurdities of life in a politicized, abused body, dedicated to an emancipation project. Her art is characterized by secret codes and ciphers meant to be understood by those, who like her, are in search of a language for the untranslatable.
Carolina Riaño Gómez
Carolina Riaño Gómez is a Colombian singer, born in Bogotá, Colombia, began her studies in Classical Singing at the "Pontificia Universidad Javeriana" in Bogotá and then moved to Germany to continue her opera studies at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, where she completed her Masters in Opera Singing. She has been part of several Latin American music projects among others the women's vocal quartet Chocolate com Laranja and the Afro-Colombian fusion jazz band Ambrodavi with whom she has released two albums "Cuentero" (2020), "Coraza" (2022). In 2022, during her residency at Cordillera Space for Bodies and Utopias, she developed her solo performance Canto Crudo about field songs. Since the fall of 2022 she has been the director of the Female Latin Choir "Canto Diáspora".
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.
Bärbel Rothhaar
The multifaceted work of Bärbel Rothhaar is interwoven with thematic "red threads". They provoke questions about the riddles of existence, about the relationship of man to nature. In her encaustic works with heated, pigmented wax, she achieves a multi-layered painting style in which the wax embeds various elements - drawings, found objects, or even human hair - in its soft, relief-like structure. Since 1999 she also works directly with bee colonies in her art. This work focuses on the dialogue of her own artistic intention with natural processes that are not always controllable. Bee researchers and beekeeping communities have contributed to various projects, such as the Bee Camera Studio or the Pollen Maps.
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.
Dr. Vandana Shiva
Dr. Vandana Shiva has obtained her Ph.D. as physicist from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She conducted inter-disciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore. In 1982 she found the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehra Dun dedicated to independent, high-quality research to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times, in close partnership with local communities and social movements. In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, and the promotion of organic farming and fair trade. In 2004 she initiated Bija Vidyapeeth, an international college for sustainable living in Doon Valley, in collaboration with the Schumacher College, U.K.
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.
Angel Suub
Angel Sulub from the from the Mayan community of Noj Kaj Santa Cruz Xáalam Naj K'ampokolche is part of the Community Center U Kúuchil K Ch'i'ibalo'on. He is also a delegate to the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) and co-organizer of the caravan "El Sur resiste", the South resists. This year, this mobilization was used by various indigenous groups in the impacted areas to draw attention to the fatal consequences of the various megaprojects and of neocolonialism.
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
Valiana Aguilar and Ángel Kú. 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 and Tushar Vayeda
Artists and siblings from a Warli community in Ganjad, Western India, Mayur (b.1992) and Tushar Vayeda (b. 1987) practice Warli art, weave ritual practices, contemporary impressions, elements of daily life, cultural legends, myths and folklore into a unique way of storytelling.
Mayur & Tashur Vayeda
Artists and siblings from a Warli community in Ganjad, Western India, Mayur and Tushar Vayeda practice Warli art, weave ritual practices, contemporary impressions, elements of daily life, cultural legends, myths and folklore into a unique way of storytelling.
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.
Caspar Weimann
Caspar Weimann (they/er/sie) is co-initiator of the internet theater onlinetheater.live, the app "Loulu" and numerous intermedia projects; leads seminars and workshops on post-digital and hybrid theater strategies, on participatory theater on the net and on the theatricality of social media; is an honorary professor and mentor for acting at the ADK Baden-Württemberg, where he is also an equal opportunities officer with a special focus on queer empowerment.
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.
Siegmar Zacharias
Siegmar Zacharias is a performance artist and trained death doula. At the intersection of art, radical pedagogy and activism, her work addresses the ethical dynamics of transformation in ecologies of artistic and social practice through a queer feminist lense. She collaborates with uncontrollable materials such as smoke, slime, saliva, the human nervous system, and grief. In somacoustic listening sessions she explores the materiality of sound as metabolic entanglements in intimacy and alienation. She was born in Romania and lives in Berlin.
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.
Zumunchi e.V. Zumunchi e.V.
The purpose of Zumunchi e.V. is to promote education and thereby achieve social improvements in the Zongo communities in Ghana. The goal is to promote self-organization among the local people, facilitated through extracurricular educational opportunities provided by the association. This is particularly realized through the establishment of a community center with a library and educational space in Nima, Accra. The center serves various aspects of community life, including youth work, children's programs, adult education, and senior engagement. It acts as a social hub for the local community, fostering exchange and making educational opportunities accessible. Through lectures, workshops, and cultural events, the center empowers individuals to work together as a community, promoting dignity, peace, and environmental sustainability. Additionally, Zumunchi e.V. advances mutual intercultural exchange between Germany and Ghana through language courses, cultural events, project organization, and fostering international partnerships and public relations efforts.