Project:
CHUZKOS Creative Lab
Role:
Co-founder
Creative Lead
Talent Sourcing
Workshop Facilitation
Project Manager
Credits:
Boris Mercado (Co-founder & Photographer)
OBJECTIVE
Amplify marginalised voices and empower change-makers to accelerate positive social change.
CHUZKOS is a multidisciplinary mobile collective that empowers creatives, non-profits and community leaders to raise awareness and promote positive change.
The project was co-founded by Boris Mercado and I, while documenting and investigating the devastating impacts the housing problem is having on our society.
A three-year journey across 5 countries led us to work with passionate leaders and multiple communities. Here is the simple format we used to take ideas to implementation, in just a few weeks in each location.
Connect: Tap into local culture to identify activists, purposeful organisations, non-profits, and natural leaders dedicated to positive social change.
Explore: Build a diverse team and initiate a collaborative process of investigation, exploration and discovery.
Educate: Facilitate marketing, photography, communication and personal development workshops that enable teams to reach their objectives.
Co-create: Produce multidisciplinary projects that ignite conversations, raise awareness, and provoke action.
Share: Use the power of creativity and communication to unleash solution-driven ideas that amplify marginalised voices.
Cultural stories, collaborative economies and community initiatives were also documented and celebrated along the way.
My Role
Co-founder of the collective, I played a key role in establishing the vision and direction of the project. I headed creative processes, built and managed teams, acquired partnerships and led all ‘Storytelling for Change’ initiatives.
Other responsibilities included, but were not limited to:
Art Direction: Concept development, management and implementation.
Talent Sourcing & Partnerships: Networking, crowdfunding, open calls and identifying opportunities for collaborations.
Event Coordination: Co-creating, marketing and hosting events (incl workshops, art exhibitions, music concerts, street interventions, etc).
Workshop Facilitation: Host marketing, communication and personal development workshops for non-profits and communities.
Project Management: Production, facilitation and support throughout all projects.
See some the projects we did below.
Lakomuna is an art collective focused on creative activism. Projects are inspired by local Ecuadorian living, human rights issues and cultural activities occurring in the city of Cuenca.
During our residency, we designed a new brand language, and helped the collective develop materials for a variety of platforms and upcoming events. We also covered and contributed to a manifestation in Cajascampa, where creatives came together to protest the unsustainable exploitation of minerals contaminating the water reserves in nearby villages and cities.
The Shuar of Chinimp is an indigenous community residing less than 10 km from Palora, in the province of Morona Santiago, Ecuador.
Their culture is abundant in unique traditions, fascinating stories, ancient practices and knowledge of the vast Amazonian fauna and flora. Unfortunately, their culture is being lost, which is why local leader and tribe ambassador, Luis Camilo Wajuyata Ruiz, is developing projects to preserve their heritage.
We had the honor of living with Luis and the community, and built a visual story to help promote his program Iruntrar Pujustin ("Collective life" in the Shuar language). The goal was to invite outsiders to not only visit the small tribe, but to partake and contribute to the community while learning about their culture.
We also held various creative workshops in the local school to promote problem-solving, communication and emphasise the power teamwork.
Cápsulas de la Realidad + Invisible: We all have the right to decent and adequate housing. This is a law recognised by our universal legal system, but when these laws are ignored, it is our most vulnerable social classes who are forgotten.
While taking part in two art residencies in Cali & Cartagena (Colombia), we teamed up with local non-profits and cultural collectives to shed light on the housing problem in Latin American. After three months of investigations in communities throughout Peru, Ecuador, & Colombia, we were ready to tell their stories.
CÁPSULAS DE LA REALIDAD: Street art is at the intersection of visual anthropology and urban intervention. A powerful and accessible form of disruption, we created a large-scale street intervention to raise awareness and transform public areas into platforms of engagement.
INVISIBLE: The street intervention was followed by a photography exhibition, art installation and opening event held in Centro Cultural Ciudad Mobile in Cartagena, Colombia. We also hosted Rafael Vergara Navarro, a well-known environmentalist and activist from Cartagena. He shared his research, and highlighted the social and environmental impact the housing problem has had on his own community.
We used these platforms to showcase work from Peru, Ecuador and Brazil, with the intention of igniting conversations, raising awareness and inspiring people to advocate for communities in need.
