Our objective with this project is to create a space in the Andean village of Simatauca, in the Cusco region of Peru, for community members, including primary school students and their families, graduates (alumni), teachers, and guests. We identify this space as a “Yachaywasi,” or house of knowledge. This will be a space where the community can: 1. meet to participate interactively and explore environmentally centered educational paradigms that offer an alternative to the educational system currently dominating the national curriculum; 2. address community development; and 3. participate in cultural and ceremonial events, all in celebration of the continuity of their ancestral traditions. Incorporating local knowledge centered on agriculture and other aesthetic practices that employ non-human-centered, earth-based ideas and activities into the educational process is an integral part of this project's energetic and conceptual proposal.

 

This design was created in reverence to traditional Andean ideologies and as a response to the fact that, while the Cusco region abounds in ancestral sacred spaces or “Huacas,” currently designated as archaeological sites, these spaces are managed primarily for tourism and economic gain practically devoid of the spiritual intentions of their original creators. This means that local populations are not allowed to interact with these sacred spaces in traditional ways. We consider this inadequate on the part of the sociopolitical infrastructure that currently governs these lands and, ultimately, a lack of respect for the ancestors whose presence for centuries has imbued these sites with exceptional beauty. Through this project, we hope to elevate this oppressive mindset by offering an alternative and inclusive space that embraces the continuity of ancestral Andean culture for the benefit of the native people who inhabit the territory surrounding Chinchero.

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The basic premise of this project recognizes the following:

• Indigenous cultures safeguard sustainable traditions and a sophisticated understanding of our interdependence within the Earth system.

 

• In nature, generosity is omnipresent, and Mother Earth, or Pachamama as she is known among the original Andean cultures, is the ubiquitous source of all this reciprocity.

 

• This non-human-centric interdependence or reciprocity is what Andean cultures identify as “Ayni” and is a fundamental basis of Andean worldviews.

 

• The precious ecosystems of our planet are maintained through the healthy relationship of all interdependent life cycles for mutual flourishing.

 

• Our modern society is out of balance with this natural order, and the Earth System is in crisis.

 

• The solutions to the current global environmental crisis lie within traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous land management models.

 

• As a result of colonization, the hegemony of the dominant Western worldview and its scientific arm, wielded as a weapon against Indigenous wisdom, has practically erased other ways of being, respecting, and valuing—this puts the skills and knowledge developed over millennia at risk of being lost.