a new indigenous university in the colombian rainforest

A NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY IN THE COLOMBIANRAINFORESTEXPLORE THE UNKNOWNBUILD KNOWLEDGE

STUDIOANNE LACATONLacaton & VassalHS19 FS20

OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTIONBACKGROUNDOBJECTIVES OF THE NEW INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITYSTUDIO OBJECTIVESCOOPERATION ZÜRICH / BOGOTÁARTIST COOPERATIONWORDSATTITUDEPROGRAMORGANISATIONPLANNING

SEMINAR WEEKBEFORE THE TRIPCHECK LIST FOR TRAVELSECURITY

APPENDIXBIBLIOGRAPHY

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Drawing : Francis Hallé50 ans d’explorations et d’études botaniques en forêt tropicale, Museo éditions, 2016

For the two upcoming semesters, the Studio Lacaton will be the setting for the first studies toward the conception of an Indigenous University as well as the architectural planning and building of the campus in southern Colombia.

The site is a 400 ha plot of forested indigenous-owned land adjacent to a large National Park of extraordinary biodiversity. The project is initiated by the Inga indigenous people who currently lack an institution for higher education in the region, particularly one that is tailored to the requirements of a life in the territory. Located at the confluence of Western contemporary environmental science and an indigenous cosmological understanding of interaction with Earth and all species, the project sets out to investigate the possibilities of merging these strands of knowledge production in fertile ways. The focus will be on herbology, biodiversity, agro-ecology, forest conservation, bioethics and medicinal knowledge. The program is open to all ethnic groups in the region and to international students.

INTRODUCTION

EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN BUILD KNOWLEDGE

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BACKGROUND

In 2003, the Inga indigenous people living across southern Colombia initiated a remarkable process of self-determination and rediscovery of their ancestral way of life and vital relation to the natural environment that would lead them from making a living from drug production toward a life of coffee planters. Now, they strive for a university that will safeguard their knowledge, their natural environment and culture, and educate a new generation of indigenous youth to be prepared for a professional future in their territories.

The Inga inhabit a large area reaching across several departments of southern Colombia: Nariño, Cauca, Caquetá and Putumayo. From the Andes to the Amazonian lowlands, their territories are biologically intense and strategically important as the source of major Amazonian rivers. Over the past 300 years, they have been severely affected by colonial expropriation, rampant deforestation, narcotraffic and armed conflicts. Fifteen years ago, the Inga people embarked on a path of strengthening their indigenous culture and economy and reconnecting with their ancestral way of life based on a philosophy of Good Living – Sumak Kawsay.

The majority of the population living in this remote region, whether indigenous or colonial settlers, have a low degree of education. As in many other marginalized areas in Colombia, the number of students who enter university here is below 10%. As there is no institution of higher education in large parts of Putumayo, Cauca and Caquetá, students who are striving for a university education have to move to towns in the Andean zone or to far away cities like Medellin and Bogotá, which for a poor population represents a major obstacle. Those who do complete their degree in these institutions often don’t return to their community, not least because the education they receive fails to meet the demands of a life in the indigenous territories. The continuous drain of young educated people leads to a population who lacks the skills for assuming many of the most essential tasks required to thrive culturally and economically. Hence there is a great need for an institution of higher learning in these post-conflict territories.

Piamonte and Putumayo have been deeply affected and isolated by the armed conflict for decades. Since the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 the populations in these Amazonian Departments have welcomed a process of pacification and return to normality. With this comes a desire to be reconnected and to build on a vision for the future, which includes permanent structures for higher education for the young generation.

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The University creates an actualized vision of the indigenous society. It is tailored to the specific requirements for a life in the territory. A primary objective of this institution-building project is to strengthen and disseminate the ancestral knowledge, know-how and millennial experience, and to buttress these efforts with Western science, technology and productive systems. The future University Campus embodies the idea of an inter-epistemic dialogue which helps to ground the education in the indigenous reality. Set in the midst of a fertile region of exceptional biodiversity, the educational focus is on environmental studies and ecological agriculture, indigenous medicine and botany, and territorial governance in dialogue with the indigenous ethics of Earth Rights.

Locating the University at the confluence of an Indigenous understanding of human interaction with Earth and all species, and Western environmental science sharing these concerns, the cooperation aims to investigate the compatibility of these distinct knowledge systems and the possibilities of merging them in fertile ways. Hence the project is firmly based in the understanding that the preservation of the biological diversity also requires the protection of the cultural and epistemic diversity that has coevolved with them in that same space. This biocultural paradigm, recognizing that nature and culture form inseparable ecological relationships, is at the heart of our shared vision. Safeguarding the precious knowledge pertaining to these ecosystems is all the more urgent as it is on the way of physical and cultural extinction due to the gap of an entire generation lost to conflict and emigration.

The University is to provide professional training by a qualified faculty composed of indigenous masters of knowledge and national and international scholars. Indigenous knowledge not being a primarily text-based practice, the curricula will be implemented through active, place-based learning in a lively setting of workshops, fieldwork, social investigations, laboratories, agricultural test grounds and research gardens (chagra). In this culture, work, and particularly collective work (minga), embodies thought and knowledge building. The site includes an agricultural production run by students, assuring an autonomous food supply for the campus. The location for the future campus has been decided by the Assembly of the Inga People, the land is owned by the community. It is located near the vast National Natural Park “Serrania de los Churumbelos”, a park of exceptional biodiversity located in a tropical environment where the Amazonian and Andean climate and geographic zones merge. The region also features very particular seismic, climatic and material conditions which need to be factored in.

OBJECTIVE OF THE NEWINDIGENOUS UNIVERSITY

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Map of Colombia

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Map of the Putumayo department

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STUDIO OBJECTIVES:EXPLORE THE UNKNOWNBUILD KNOWLEDGE

The Indigenous University project provides the opportunity to engage with a context whose conditions are completely different from the ones we know in Europe. For many of us, this situation is totally new and unknown.

The objective of the studio is not to provide the final architectural proposal but to elaborate a precise and complete documentation, based on knowledge we will have to acquire, and a program which will serve as the basis and the brief for the project of design and construction of the Campus by architects.The purpose of the studio will be to build knowledge based on research and analysis. We will document a set of references in close collaboration with the Javeriana University of Bogotá and the indigenous people, in order that statements, needs, expectations and ideas about what this university could be, can emerge. It is from these encounters, from field research and contextualised knowledge that ideas and concepts for the university will develop.

This requires exploring new ways of working, analysing, researching, and collaborating with the indigenous community to respond intelligently to this new situation and its expectations. Rather than transposing tools and methods which are applicable in a Western context, the goal is to put ourselves in a position of maximum openness; to understand and determine the objectives of such a special project as best we can, in order that we may devise the most intelligent strategies and orientations. This means spreading the research over two semesters.This means spreading the research over two semesters.

The aim of the studio is to make a thorough analysis of the Putumayo-Piamonte Region, and the site for the university campus in particular. The studio will elaborate on in-depth documentation, which will serve as the basis for developing architectural and spatial ideas and concepts.

The studio runs in the scope of an academic cooperation between ETH and Javieriana University in Colombia. Two parallel ateliers in Bogotá and Zürich will work together treating the same aspects with a common schedule and objectives.

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SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

- to learn from indigenous communities about their conception of, and interaction with, the territory, their needs, ambitions, and iconography.

- to develop suitable forms of collaboration between the Swiss and Colombian students/professors, and in relation to the indigenous community.

- to conceive low-tech passive environmental solutions for an isolated low-income population, taking into consideration the pertinent geophysical and climatic conditions and the vernacular techniques and typologies.

- to generate materials through research, analysis, concepts, experiments, plans, 3d representations, diagrams, models and spatial programs.

- to organise a comprehensive documentation through a process of selecting, filtering, editing and structuring these materials.

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COOPERATION ZÜRICH / BOGOTÁETH ZURICH / PONTIFICIA UNIVERSIDAD JAVERIANA BOGOTÁ, PUJ

The opportunity of conceiving and building a new campus should be shared among students in Switzerland and Colombia. The ETH design studio of Anne Lacaton and the design studio “New Territories” directed by Prof. Carlos Hernandez at Javeriana University, are partners in all stages of research, documentation and planning of a university campus in collaboration with representatives of the Inga community.

Conceived as mirror-studios, the partner studios collaborate closely for two semesters – Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 – with an integrated seminar week in the territory in October 2019. Divided into five research groups composed of students from both Universities, the students will be sharing and discussing their findings throughout the semester via electronic media.

Specialized in international cooperation on projects in remote and marginalized communities in Colombia, our partner architecture studio “New Territories” at La Javeriana provides the special expertise and experience we need. They have a history of working with local and sustainable materials which are most resistant to seismic activities. Their team is composed of Prof. Carlos Hernandez (director), Prof. Santiago Pradilla and Prof. José Luis Bucheli.

Mandated by the Inga people, Zurich-based artist Ursula Biemann has introduced and negotiated the cooperation with Javeriana University and the ETH. The Inga community, and its official representative Hernando Chindoy, are our local partners in the territory. We are collaborating closely with them for all decisions regarding structure, purpose, program, and the spatial and social organization of the future University.

Left : Hernando Chindoy. Right : mirror studio in Bogotá.

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CARLOS HERNANDEZ

Architect of the Universidad de los Andes. Since 1986, Professor of projects at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Since 1996, he is Director of the International Program (PEI) New Territories of the Faculty of Architecture and Design of the PUJ.He was invited professor at different workshops and seminars at Pratt Schools in New York; IUAV Institute of Architecture of Venice; Castellvechio Verona; II Workshop internazionale di architettura, Padua; International School of Architecture of Catalonia; University of Buenos Aires; Catholic University of Chile; and School of Architecture, Mendrisio, Switzerland.His built work has been awarded nationally and internationally, among these awards stand out: First Prize Biennial of Colombian Architecture 1992. Barranquilla Customs Project;First Prize Latin American Architecture Biennial, Quito Ecuador 1994, Bavaria Central Park Project; First Prize Biennial Architecture 2006, Project Third Millennium Park Bogota.

JOSE LUIS BUCHELI AGUALIMPIA

Architect and Master in Urban and Regional Planning of the Faculty of Architecture and Design, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana PUJ, Bogota, where he contributed to the formulation of the academic program of the International Program PEI. He is Academic and Administrative Coordinator of the Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning as well as Technical and Administrative Coordinator for the Planning and Urban Design of the Relocation Project for the population of Bellavista - Municipality of Bojayá (Chocó) and various other major projects. He is a member of the advisory team for the development of the urban guidelines of the Plan for the Regularization and Management of El Dorado Airport and development of the urban component for the Master Plan for Cultural Facilities of the Capital District. In 2006, he participated in the Third Session of the UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum. Our Future: Sustainable Cities - Turning Ideas into Action in Vancouver.

SANTIAGO PRADILLA HOSIE

Santiago Paradilla studied architecture at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and did a Master’s degree in Habitat and Housing at the National University of Colombia.Passionate about traveling and touring the country, he began his informal training in the Tierradentro mountains with the guanacas indigenous community, and later in the Palafítico town of Cupica in the Colombian Pacific. He also lived in Bojayá before the resettlement, worked with 14 Emberas communities in the jungles of the Middle Atrato, and has worked with the communities of Palomino, Tamalameque, Antequera, Puerto Boca, El Pedral, Puente Sogamoso, Kilometro 8, María la baja, San Pablo and Florido, among other authentic settlements in Colombia. http://www.santiagopradilla.com/#/

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Ursula Biemann is a video essayist who practices an expanded notion of art which includes publications, collaborative projects, research cooperations, and curatorial endeavors. For twenty years, she has been exploring the potentials of videographic forms of territorial research. The fields of investigation range from migration and borders in a rapidly globalizing world in her earlier projects (e.g. Sahara Chronicle), to the political ecologies of resource extraction and climate change in a series of more recent works (Forest Law, World of Matter). Conducting intense field research in remote locations, she then works the findings into multi-layered videoworks, web platforms and spatial installations. The projects generally take a systemic approach to terrestrial conditions by connecting the micropolitics on the ground with a theoretical and planetary macro level. The main protagonist in these recent narratives is the figure of the indigenous scientist who emerges from a shared history of colonialism and the appearance of modern science. In 2018, the Museum of Contemporary Art on the campus of the National University in Bogota has commissioned her with a new work implying a one-month field trip to the Colombian Amazon. Rather than a film, the outcome of this research trip turned out to be a proposal for co-creating an Indigenous University in the South, in close collaboration with the Inga people. The purpose of this institutional project is to bring different epistemic systems into dialogue by integrating indigenous knowledge practices with the best aspects of Western science. Again, the task at hand is to fully understand the territorially embedded knowledge of the indigenous communities, and to link it to other, more globally operating epistemic systems, in an effort to generate new understanding and social justice for a historically marginalized culture.Many aspects of this unique artistic practice can also be applied to the research, analysis, production and organization of findings that the “New University Campus” studio will tackle. We are looking forward to an inspiring and productive collaboration.

ARTIST COOPERATION

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Performance by Shuar shaman in his forest pharmacy (Ursula Biemann)

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WORDS

to roamto knowto visitto inventory, to classifyto estimateto countto compareto measureto appreciateto chooseto assess capacitiesto assess priorities

do not demolishdo not cutdo not disorganizeto respectto adapt, to buildto reuse, to merge, to transformto optimize, to increase, to enlarge, to add, to leanto superimpose, to interleave

to do or not to do

to give views and lightto give gardens, natureto provide servicesto give fluidity and facilityto reduce charges and energy consumptionto save, to economizeto diversifyto connectto densify...to love

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“Whether it is vegetation, use, view, space, ground or construction – the existing is the structure prior to every project. We consider it with interest and attention, as a kind of resource bringing an initial value to the project with which one needs to (should) work with.

The use, the re-use and the transformation are today part of the creation and invention in ar-chitecture and urbanism. It is necessary to consistently pursue, extend and perpetuate existing situations with the utmost delicacy and lightness. Adding, superposing, spanning the existing is a matter of economy and effectiveness.

Based on observation, understanding, acknowledgement of qualities and values on which we can rely, this approach is situated somewhere in a permanent adjustment between on the one hand, the characters and assets of the existing as well as the potentialities offered by the spaces and the land; and on the other hand, the necessity of evolution, adaptation, creation, and taking care of the conditions of a new context and new uses.”Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal.

OBSERVING / INVENTORYING / REPORTING

Let’s start the process of gaining a thorough understanding of the situation by observing and registering. How do we document, inventory, and report? What methods do we use? And how do we synthesize information?One type of knowledge will be gained through reading, research, guest lectures and online conversations with our studio partners in Bogotá. Another valuable source will be the direct encounters with the indigenous community and geography on our trip, where ethnographic methods will apply.

We will begin by collecting all relevant facts and data, and then will organise, layer, complete, filter and structure this information. A common document will be compiled from the collected data, made available to all participants in the mirror studios of both Zurich and Bogotá as a common pool of resources and constant reference. The document will constitute the common knowledge baseline for the project.

This will be a phase of research and observation, knowledge building, data collecting and inventorying, as well as interpreting and understanding the existing situation through dialogue, and through intuitive, sensorial and emotional perceptions. The work in this first semester will be materialised in the form of graphic elements, drawings, photographs, notes, texts, maps, statements and videos.

The work will be carried out in small groups composed of students from ETH and PUJ.

ATTITUDE

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The two parallel ateliers in Bogotá and Zurich are treating the same aspects following common objectives and a common schedule. There will be periodical e-meetings between the two studios. The student groups are responsible for shaping and managing the collaboration with their partner group in Columbia and for establishing their own mode of exchange. Throughout the semester, the work will be done in groups (maximum 4 students), within which some aspects will be dealt with individually.

The exact distribution of work over the two semesters will be specified and adjusted as the work progresses. Broadly speaking, the distribution of work throughout the year could present itself as follows:

FIRST SEMESTER

The first month will be dedicated to preparing the visit to Columbia during the seminar week.Field trip in October, 2019.The main assignment consists of the analysis of the territory and architectural references in view of defining the qualities of space.Output will be a booklet reporting this first phase of analysis and the book of qualities, which will constitute a preliminary document for the spatial program of the Campus.

SECOND SEMESTER

Elaboration of the spatial program for the Campus as well as architectural concepts and solutions based on the conjunction of the analysis and intentions of the first semester.Final output of the studio will be the production of a comprehensive documentation, a spatial program and projects, which together constitute the basis for the concrete project for the Indigenous University.

PROGRAM

Drawing left : Francis Hallé50 ans d’explorations et d’études botaniques en forêt tropicale, Museo éditions, 2016

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In order to organise the research in an optimal way and to allow everyone to understand the complex challenges of this ambitious project, the work will be organised in six simultaneous parts spread over the year. The research will gradually evolve from a phase of analysis, collection and information to the development of a program and test planning for the campus. The ultimate objective of these two semesters is to produce a summary document – including the analyses and the architectural, spatial and functional research and recommendations – which will be transmitted to the university’s future construction stakeholders as a preliminary study for the project of the new campus.

I GENERAL TOPICSThe first study will allow us to learn about the historical, social, political and cultural context of this project, and about this environment which is totally new to us. This will be a common module which will be given through lectures, interventions, readings, and conversations with the Javeriana students. We will benefit in particular from the interventions of Ursula Biemann throughout the semester, as well as guests who are specialists of certain very specific subjects.Each of the student groups will choose a theme from the list below, and work directly with a mirror group of students in Colombia who will work on the same topic.The analyses will be refined throughout the semester. In particular, the analysis of the site – in a large sense – as well as the specific needs of the community for the future campus (functions, spaces, relations, etc.) will be deepened during the trip to the territories and in intense collaboration with the mirror studio. To open up the discussion within the studio, the material covered in this first study will be taken up, organised and synthesised, through notes, plans, photos, and illustrations for example.The 5 topics are :

- biology, biodiversity, ecology, Andes-Amazon hydrologic systems- productive systems, commons and economic activity, agriculture, circulation of goods etc.- environmental conditions: climat, seisms, risks of landslides, soil, etc.- infrastructures, urbanization, economic development, new concessions for mining and oil extraction- ethnic geography of the region, indigenous social structures, way of life, cosmology,and relation to territory

ORGANISATION

Feuille1

Page 1

GENERAL TOPICS SPACE PROGRAM

Group

Individual

Semester 1

Semester 2

RESEARCH ANDANALYSIS OF BUILT

REFERENCES

DESIGN OFFRAGMENTS

PROJECTPREFIGURATION

ORGANISATION OFTHE

DOCUMENTATION

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II RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS OF BUILT REFERENCESThe second study will concern the research and analysis of built references, allowing the creation of a common catalogue for all; a “catalogue of qualities”, which could be used for future phases of the project. References will come from different contexts, including those outside Colombia, but may also come from locations during the trip.The analysis of the examples and their specifics such as dimensions of rooms, light, views, construction systems, relations with the outside, communication within the space, climate, materials, etc., will require making precise drawings of the plans and sections, finding good interior photos, and the presentation of interesting facts showing how the building works.Individual work within each group.

III DESIGN OF FRAGMENTSThe third study of the studio will be dedicated to the production of functional fragments of spaces, which are an integral part of the future university’s programme; such as classrooms, laboratories, common rooms, student accommodation and so on. This section will help to determine a complete and accurate campus programme, for which we will draw on different tools: photographic collages, sketches, drawings etc. Individual work within each group.

IV SPACE PROGRAMOn the basis of conversations with the indigenous community, fieldwork and research carried out by students from both studios, we will now try to detail the programme of the future campus as precisely as possible.Work in groups.

V PROJECT PREFIGURATIONFollowing documentary research, a visit to the site and its inhabitants, and the first fragmentary research, this 5th study will be an opportunity to sketch out a spatial and organisational prefiguration of the whole campus.Individual work within the group.

VI ORGANISATION OF THE DOCUMENTATIONThe studies and analyses, the lectures and the seminar week will make it possible to collect an important set of information, notes, sketches and references.This documentation must be organised, archived and classified from the start of the project on a continuous basis, in order to constitute a cumulative document that is as complete as possible. This will be shared in the form of a unique report at the end of the studio’s activities, in order to be included in the brief for the future project. The high quality and the substance of this documentation is one of the main objectives of the studio.

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Lectures will complete the program,dates and guests will be announced during the semester.

PLANNINGStudio Anne Lacaton, Lacaton&Vassal A NEW UNIVERSITY CAMPUS IN THE COLOMBIAN RAINFOREST timetable HS 2019

Week Date Time Program

CW38 Tue 17.09.19 09:00h Introduction by Anne Lacaton, ONA G23 01 Wed 18.09.19 09:00h individual work

CW39 Tue 24.09.19 13:00h critique with assistants, individual work 02 Wed 25.09.19 09:00h critique with assistants, individual work

CW40 Tue 01.10.19 14:30h studio desk crit with Anne Lacaton 03 Wed 02.10.19 09:00h studio desk crit with Anne Lacaton


CW42 Tue 15.10.19 09:00h individual work 05 Wed 16.10.19 09:00h studio desk crit with Anne Lacaton

CW43 19.-27.10.19 seminarweek 06


CW45 Tue 05.11.19 13:00h individual work 08 Wed 06.11.19 09:00h review with Anne Lacaton & guests


CW47 Tue 19.11.19 09:00h studio desk crit with Anne Lacaton 10 Wed 20.11.19 09:00h individual work




CW51 Mon 16.12.19 12:00h submission 14 Tue 17.12.19 09:00h Final review of the 1st semester, with guests

Studio Anne Lacaton, Lacaton&Vassal | ETH Zürich | FS 2018 | Professor Anne Lacaton | Assistants: Simon Durand, Ilona Schneider

Studio Anne Lacaton, Lacaton&Vassal A NEW UNIVERSITY CAMPUS IN THE COLOMBIAN RAINFOREST timetable HS 2019

Week Date Time Program

CW38 Tue 17.09.19 09:00h Introduction by Anne Lacaton, ONA G23 01 Wed 18.09.19 09:00h individual work




CW42 Tue 15.10.19 09:00h individual work 05 Wed 16.10.19 09:00h studio desk crit with Anne Lacaton

CW43 19.-27.10.19 seminarweek 06


CW45 Tue 05.11.19 13:00h individual work 08 Wed 06.11.19 09:00h review with Anne Lacaton & guests


CW47 Tue 19.11.19 09:00h studio desk crit with Anne Lacaton 10 Wed 20.11.19 09:00h individual work




CW51 Mon 16.12.19 12:00h submission 14 Tue 17.12.19 09:00h Final review of the 1st semester, with guests

Studio Anne Lacaton, Lacaton&Vassal | ETH Zürich | FS 2018 | Professor Anne Lacaton | Assistants: Simon Durand, Ilona Schneider

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SEMINAR WEEK

The objective of the field trip in the territories is to experience the indigenous way of life, visit the sites, meet leading community members and learn first hand about their social context. The travel group will be composed of ETH students (17); Javeriana students (12) and 6 Inga students as well as the ETH studio team, 3-4 Javeriana professors and our Inga guides.

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM SEMESTER TRIP VILLA GARZON/PIAMONTE

19.10 flight Zurich-Bogota, arrival at 3.30 pm bus transfer to IBIS Museo Hotel, Bogota welcome by Prof Carlos Hernandez, informal early dinner to meet the students of our Javeriana partner studio.

20.10 6 am flight to Villa Garzon VGZ with Satena Airlines (1 hr, 40 min) mini bus transfer to our hotels in VGZ, base for 5 nights. welcome by Indigenous leader tour of UNI “El Tambor”, University premise 1

21.10 bus ride to Puerto Limon, crossing the Caquetá river by boat, day hike to the mountains of the Serraina de Churumbelos, indigenous to tell us about extreme biodiversity of the tropical Andes; visit lot for future construction site (320 ha). Hike along former path built by oil company which left region 4 years ago.

22.10 bus ride to Osococha (Putumayo), Visit of high school Yunguillo, community sharing, return to VGZ.

23.10 tour to the sacred area “El Mirador” of the Inga and Camentzá people

24.10 day of sharing with leaders, authorities and Inga Elders.

25.10 early morning flight from VGZ back to Bogota > transfer to Hotel IBIS Museo, visit 2 architectural sites in Bogota with Carlos Hernandez. common dinner in the historic district Calendaria.

26.10 open day check-out and transfer to airport by bus or taxi, return flight BOG-ZHR at 5 pm.

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BEFORE THE TRIP

VACCINATION AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES

Required for Amazonian Colombia: - yellow fever- diphtheria- poliomyelitis- tetanus- measles- hepatitis A (and B)

To be sure you will be well covered for the travel, please book a consultation at Zentrum für Reisemedizin online and bring your vaccination certificate: https://www.ebpi.uzh.ch/de/services/travelclinic/termin_buchen_DE.html

Universität Zürich - Zentrum für ReisemedizinHirschengraben 84, 8001 Zürich

You will not need to individually buy malaria prophylaxis, we include it in our general first aid kit. Include to your personal first aid kit all medicaments you need regularly, plasters, dressing material, antipyretic, medicament against traveller’s diarrhea. You can get further information in the Zentrum für Reisemedizin when checking your vaccinations.Mosquito protection: application of repellents on uncovered skin, in darkness: wear bright clothes with long sleeves and trouser legs (malaria risk)Zika-virus: Pregnant women should not travel to Colombia!No unprotected sex! It can transmit AIDS, Hepatitis B, etc.

TRAVEL INSURANCE

During semester trips, students are not automatically insured by ETHZ, see information letter attached. You may want to book your own travel insurance for flight annulation, medical assistance or loss or theft. We inform you in the Studio introduction lecture (September 17) about the detailed insurance procedure, as you could apply for a group insurance, which is cheaper than individual one.https://www.allianz-assistance.ch/en/

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CHECK LIST FOR TRAVEL

CLOTHES

- rubber boots or comfortable hiking boots with ankle support (most practical, that’s what the indigenous wear; Rubber boots are cheap and can be acquired in Villa Garzon, let us know your shoe size ahead of time to make sure they are waiting for you.)- sneakers or light trekking shoes with socks- bring enough socks, T-shirts and shirts with long sleeves, preferably easy to dry (clothes dry very slowly in this humid climate, Mosquitos are attracted to dark colors)- dry bag to pack wet clothes- light long pants- sweat jacket or light sweater for the evening- sun hat/ sun cap/ scarf for neck burns- slippers or sandals- swimsuit and towel

PHARMACY AND FIRST AID KIT

- personal first aid kit- Daypack - Sunscreen (creme, spray) for tropical sun- mosquito spray

OTHERS

- Colombia has US type plugs, bring adapter for your chargers- passport- vaccination certificate- ETH letter signed by Anne Lacaton (you will get it before the travel)

FOOD

Local food typically includes chicken, eggs, fish, cereals, vegetables and fruit juices. If you have a particular diet or food allergies, please let us know before leaving.Drink only bottled water!Allergies: has to be filled in «Anmeldeformular und Verpflichtungserklärung zur Exkursion»Bogota is fairly cold, 13-18° during the day, cooler at night. Bring a jacket and a sweaterIn the territory it’s warmer, 25-28° and humid with short but heavy tropical rains every day.

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SECURITY

Call numbersAdresses...

Hernando Chindoy Cel +57 310 472 95 81 andJavier Chindoy (driver, state security) +57 311 3417627 have all phone numbers of local police stations, medical assistance and transport companies. State Hospital Las Maldivas, Floriencia (5 hours)24 hour ambulance service https://www.hospitalmalvinas.gov.co/urgencias/+57 322 834 1546 / 317 287 9301 / 315 743 5551 / 322 835 5605San Rafael Hospital, Pasto (4 h by car from Villagarzon)Cra. 42 #7-197+57 2 7362621

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APPENDIX

Drawing : Francis Hallé50 ans d’explorations et d’études botaniques en forêt tropicale, Museo éditions, 2016

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HISTORICAL CONTEXTOF THE INDIGENOUS INGA PEOPLE OF COLOMBIAASSEMBLED BY URSULA BIEMANN

Amid an armed conflict that ravaged through the Southwest of Colombia for several decades, the Indigenous Inga people of Colombia have undertaken a remarkable process of regaining the sovereignty over a sizeable part of their ancestral territory. Their landmark case of resistance and recuperation was channeled through the renewal of their indigenous cultural identity along with a revitalization of specifically indigenous values and traditions. The story of the Inga reflects a larger movement that has gathered momentum in the 1980s and 1990s in Latin America and in the global arena, where a new vocal public persona and globalizing voice made itself heard: the Indigenous presence. Diverse in their scope, they generally pursue a vision of liberalization and cultural difference that challenges the modernizing agendas of nation-states and transnational capitalism. In light of the fact that the models of progress and development linked to modernism are running up against their limits with staggering evidence of overexploitation and environmental exhaustion, the indigenous struggle gained vast support from international activist organizations and academic scholarship. This prompted the United Nations to issue the legally binding Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention enforced by the ILO in 1991, which laid out new international standards. The C169, as the convention is called, created the legal basis for a more effective Indigenist struggle on a global scale. It had an immediate impact on the New Constitution of Colombia signed in the same year, which recognizes a number of these indigenous rights, including the right to their specific culture and language and an inalienable territory, eliminating earlier policies aiming at cultural assimilation.

On a local level, though, for the Inga of Colombia, the indigenous experience was rather that of an isolated struggle for survival in the presence of the guerillas, armed drug traffickers, and the paramilitary, who between 1986 and 2004 infested the indigenous communities, violated their territorial rights, degraded the local ecosystems and hampered any mobility or development of the rural population.

At the heart of this liberation effort lies Aponte, an Inga municipality located at 2000m altitude on the Tablón de Garzon in the Andean department Nariño. If the community managed to rid themselves single-handedly from these groups, it is in part due to their successful negotiations with the State of Colombia to reformulate a national program designated to financially compensate indigenous people for eliminating drug related plantations from their land. Instead of state funds being allocated to individual families, the Inga insisted on obtaining a communal fund for the support of the entire community, which facilitated the organization of a local governance based in a shared vision of justice and collective action. The funds enabled them to economically bridge a difficult period of transition to more peaceful crops. The immediate outcome of their communal

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politics was the allocation of 17’500 ha, i.e. 75 percent of their reservation, to a protected sacred zone. A driving figure of these radical transformations was Hernando Chindoy who was elected Governor of Aponte in 2005. Starting in Aponte and emanating into other Inga communities spread around Nariño, Cauca, Putumayo and Caquetá, as well as reaching other Indigenous peoples who live in the region, this process of self-organization, resistance and cultural renewal kicked of a wave of initiatives and inter-tribal exchanges which strengthened a more collective effort to engage in a conscious historical process of indigeneity.

Before this breakthrough moment, the indigenous population in the region was simply considered “campesinos” – peasants, often bearing adopted Spanish names. No distinction was made between colonial settlers and indigenous people whose ancestral land this was. With the conscious choice to relink to older traditions, taking up their indigenous names again and remembering their cosmology of deep connection with the Earth and the land with all its species, ecosystems, medicines, spirits and resources, they began an significant process of rearticulation.

HISTORYThe Inga people of Colombia have their origin in the Inca Civilization stretching along the Andes who expanded into Colombia through the tropical forests of Ecuador in the early 15th century. At present, the ethnic group inhabits the departments of Caquetá, Putumayo, Nariño and Cauca, with the majority living in the Amazonian department Putumayo. The Testament of an early Inga leader, the Taita of Taitas, Carlos Tamabioy, dated March 1700 and duly protocolled before the Spanish Crown, witnesses the original territories passed on to the Inga people, in particular the reserves around the Higher Putumayo, Cauca, Aponte and in the Valley of Sibundoy. However, the ownership of these lands has been contested time and again. The indigenous struggle against the colonizers took a sharp turn in 1887 when the Colombian government signed the Concordat with the Holy See by which vast areas of uncharted territorios nacionales –including the tutelage of the entire indigenous population who inhabited these territories, was handed over to the Roman Catholic Church for compensation of lost properties. The state of Colombia saw the Catholic Church as the perfect institution to hispanicize and assimilate indigenous peoples. A few years later, the first missionaries arrived in the Putumayo unleashing a long and perverse process of colonization and conversion. From there, they advanced to the Lower Bota Caucana and the Caquetá in the late 19th and early 20th century. What used to be sacred Inga spaces for Ayahuasca ceremonies, fishing, hunting and the collection of medicinal plants, was transformed into transit routes for the messenger services of the Dominicans and the Capuchins and the trade of quinine, caoutchouc, gold and furs. Even if on a few occasions reservations were issued to the Inga, the most valuable lands remained firmly in the hands of the missions and the settlers. In light of this first occupation of the Inga territories and the abuses experienced by the community, they began to migrate as an alternative to resistance and later to initiate legal processes of land reclamation.From the 1920’s the colonial pressures on the indigenous population to leave their lands increased. A major reason for this was that in prior decades, the Colombian state had sold vast chunks of

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Trail leading to University Premises 2, Piamonte

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land to pay off debts accrued during the independence war. The result was an acute inequality where nearly a third of all farmland was owned by a small number of wealthy private landowners while landless peasants were locked into unfair sharecropping contracts. On the back of the rising tension between landowners and peasants, two attempts were made by the government in the 1930s and 1960s to redistribute land and legalize property titles. They both failed under the pressure from the collective efforts of conservative cattle rangers and the industrial bourgeoisie to neutralize land redistribution, with the effect that land ownership concentrated even more, pushing colonial settlers further into uncharted indigenous lands. These land politics, inherited from the Spanish conquerors and never turned into a democratic system, received validation from international bodies at the time. In the 1920’s, the Colombian government adopted a new development strategy recommended by World Bank economists who saw the success of any politics not in the economic advancement of peasants, nor their education, but in sending them to the cities where they would work in the factories of the industrial revolution. Taken together, these factors led to a prolonged period of migration of indigenous people from the region to the cities or abroad, leaving behind a weakened rural population.

With the stock market crash of 1929, which brought about a drop in coffee prices and the fall of the Conservative regime, a new Liberal government took its place during the 30s and 40s, setting out to tackle the agrarian reform that was meant to change the unequal distribution of land. It was often intellectuals, artists and architects of the middle class who were driving the attempts to modernize “rural folk” and engage with indigenous communities. In search of a Colombian identity that was linked to a desire for Latin American cultural independence from Europe and the United States, this intellectual quest, also called Indigenismo, prompted visits to the Putumayo and other Amazonian regions that were widely unknown to citizens and universities in the capital. Motivated by the potential discovery of remnants of indigenous civilizations similar to the Aztecs in Mexico or the Incas in Peru, which could serve as a foundation for a new authentic Colombian identity, the Indigenistas discovered instead an impoverished, marginalized indigenous population in need of political support. The insights gained during these trips led them to rethink land tenure in Colombia and entailed the elaboration of a new political discourse, which saw the indigenous ethnic identity inseparably linked to land. Hence they argued for the importance of the resguardos. The tight cooperation between Indigenistas and politicized Indigenous communities in the 1940s created a cultural and political space that rediscovered and valorized the indigenous culture.

In the 1970s, these political claims were successfully taken up again by the premier indigenous grassroots organization, the CRIC, the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca in Popayan, which became the cradle of Indigenous uprisings in Colombia. It was in the Cauca where in October 2008 some 12,000 indigenous Colombians marched onto the Pan-American Highway and refused to lift their blockade until their demands for land, liberty and life were met by the state. In the following year, the first Indigenous University of Colombia opened in the Caucana capital Popayan.The 1970s saw the rise of another development that should have a lasting impact on the Inga

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Walking through University Premises 1, Piamonte

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territories. Groups of armed landless peasants who had organized into a guerilla, showed up in the area, followed by drug traffickers who introduced a gigantic system of illicit cultivation, production and export of coca to finance the guerilla war. It is estimated that another 15 percent of Colombia’s land properties changed hands during the armed conflict, mostly seized from indigenous populations. In the Latin American context, Colombia represents an extreme case where 1% of big landowners (500 ha or more) own 85% of the land in Colombia.

In the Andean territory of Aponte, the planting of poppy (Papaver somniferum) for heroin production began in 1991 and arrived at an impressive 1500 ha of cultivated land. Indiscriminate logging for the massive expansion of poppy and coca fields took a heavy toll on the forests. To add to this environmental disaster, the poppy cultivation dried out and practically sterilized the soils. With the implementation of the Plan Colombia signed with the United States in 1999 to combat drug trafficking in the country, the situation aggravated further. Part of this deal to control cocaine supply was the areal fumigation of large swathes of land using Glyphosate, an aggressive herbicide patented by US-based firm Monsanto. Nearly half of the spraying took place in the Putumayo and Nariño departments along the Ecuadorian border, severely affecting the environment and indigenous populations.1 The deadly campaign left deep footprints in the landscape.

Regardless, the conflict continued and drew the life out of the Inga community in Aponte where most of the school-aged children and youth were working in the poppy plantations without anyone challenging the dismal situation. It is the Inga women who finally faced up to the problem and initiated a process of analysis and reflection on how to move forward as an indigenous people. In 2003, a strategic alliance of Inga community members decided to confront the negative elements that continuously deteriorated their life, leading the way to an unprecedented strengthening of their institutional structures and cultural identity. In that same year, they obtained the juridical status of resguardo, meaning that as an indigenous reservation, it is a collective property, which cannot be taken away by proscription, seizure or be transferred. Hernando Chindoy Chindoy, the newly elected Governor of the resguardo, was heading the initiative of recuperating the autonomy, dignity, sovereignty, and spirituality of these ancestral people, starting with establishing the Mandate for the Continued Existence of the Pueblo Inga. Based on his model, the various Inga communities in the wider region were organized politically and juridically through the creation of community councils called “cabildos”. At the same time, they created the Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Authorities of Southwest Colombia including the Awá, Cofán, Esperara Siapidaara, Inga, Nasa Uh, Quillasinga and Siona. To this day, the Tribunal treated more than 600 cases of violations. They also promoted the Alliance of Indigenous Women of Nariño to support other indigenous peoples in their effort to reclaim ancestral land and get rid of drug traffickers and armed groups.

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Water-producing páramos on Andean highland

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In a crucial move, the Inga agreed with the Colombian government to modify the National Forest Guardian Families Program created to support families who substitute legal for illegal crops, to respect their communal values. Typically the government would pay such subsidies to families, which disqualified many community members. Instead, the Inga people of Aponte managed to be paid out in a communal fund which benefited all members of the community and, more significantly, helped to fortify governmental structures which ultimately empowered them to get rid of the guerillas, the paramilitaries and the drug traffickers. The payments coming in from 2004 to 2006 made the difficult transition to healthier crops possible. Decades of monoculture had left the mountains brown, depleted and completely dried out. First, the soil needed to be built up and organically made fertile again before embarking on the experiment of planting coffee at this high altitude, and generally revitalize the environment with a great variety of fruit trees and other species. They managed to recuperate 3500 hectares of affected land through the use of organic fertilizer and reforestation. This remarkable initiative and all products deriving from the arduous efforts runs under the label “Wuasikamas – Guardians of the Earth”, a trademark registered in 2017 for the global commercialization of their products, including the special high elevation coffee which won a UN award.

To be the Guardians of the Earth is all the more important as the Inga live in an ecologically and hydrologically crucial region, also called the “Colombian Fluvial Star”, located in the high Colombian Macizo in the Andes with its cold water-producing páramo ecosystem and Lagunas feeding the major rivers Putumayo, Cauca, and Caquetá, flowing through the cloud forest down into the lush Amazonian lowlands. The Inga territories cover the whole range of bioregions where the Andean and the Amazonian ecosystems converge, producing extraordinary biodiversity, particularly in plants, trees, and birds. During the period of poppy cultivation in these fragile ecoregions, hundreds of hectares of forest above 2000 m altitude were cut down, destroying areas up to the water sponges of the páramo. With the turn toward safeguarding the precious natural resources, the Inga became aware of the immense riches they are responsible for. The rewards are that the mountains have greened again and the flora and fauna are slowly restoring, hundreds of birds have returned and the climate has become a little less extreme.

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Aponte, coffee growing home territory of Hernando Chindoy

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- Sara Besky and Jonathan Padwe, Placing Plants in Territory, Environment and Society: Advances in Research 7, 2016 (pdf). Using plants to think about territory (keywords borders, colonialism, garden, identity, multispecies ethnography, plantation, the state)

- Ursula Biemann & Paulo Tavares, Forest Law – A Project on the Cosmopolitics of Amazonia, 2014 (pdf) and hard copy.

- James Clifford, Returns – Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century, Harvard University Press, 2013. The book explores homecomings—the ways people recover and renew their roots. Engaging with indigenous histories of survival and transformation, Clifford opens fundamental questions about where we are going, separately and together, in a globalizing, but not homoge-nizing, world.

- Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George B. Handley, Postcolonial Ecologies, Oxford University Press, 2011. Brings ecocritical studies into a necessary dialogue with postcolonial literature, offering rich and suggestive waya to explore the relationship between humans and nature around the globe.

- Arturo Escobar, Thinking-feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimen-sion of the Epistemologies of the South, Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 2016 (pdf)

- Arturo Escobar, After Nature: Steps to an Antiessentialist Political Ecology Current Anthropology, 1999, (pdf)

- Arturo Escobar, Whose Knowledge, Whose nature? Biodiversity, Conservation, and the Political Ecology of Social Movements, Journal of Political Ecology, 1998 (pdf)

https://anthropology.unc.edu/person/arturo-escobar/

- Philippe Descola, In the Society of Nature: A Native Ecology in Amazonia. Cambridge University Press, 1994

- Kristina Lyons, Decomposition as Life Politics: Soils, Selva, and Small Farmers under the Gun of the U.S.-Colombian War on Drugs, Cultural Anthropology, 2016 (pdf)

- Carlos Niño Murcia, architect, Chamanismo. On his website he has all the graphics. He investi-gated how landscape and space is produced by the indigenous in Colombia.https://carlosninomurcia.com/portfolio-item/chamanismo/

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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- Michel Serres, The Natural Contract, University of Michigan Press, 1995Global environmental change, argues Michel Serres, has forced us to reconsider our relationship to nature. In this influential 1990 book Le Contrat Naturel, Serres calls for a natural contract to be negotiated between Earth and its inhabitants.

- Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think - Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, University of California, 2013. Based on four years of fieldwork among the Runa of Ecuador’s Upper Amazon, Eduardo Kohn draws on his rich ethnography to explore how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the world’s most complex ecosystems

- Udo Thönnissen, Reciprocal Frameworks – Tradition and Innovation, gta Publishers Zurich ISBN 978-3-85676-344-2

- Brett Troyan, Re-Imagining the “Indian” and the State: Indigenismo in Colombia 1926-1947, Ca-nadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 2008 (pdf)

- Lesley Wylie, Colombia’s Forgotten Frontier - A Literary Geography of the Putumayo, 2013https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/isbn/9781846319747/

- Carlos Ernesto Pinzón and Gloria Garay, Inga and Kamsa, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, from the book Geografía Humana de Colombia, Region Andina Central, Tomo IV, Volumen III, 1998

- Carlos Niño Murcia, Territorio chamánico, Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 2015. A view from architecture to the indigenous way of building and appropriating their environment.

- Paul Oliver, Vernacular Architecture of the world. Architecture, Theories, Principles, Cultures and Habitats, Cambridge University Press, 1997

- Juan Pablo Muñoz Onofre, La brecha de implementación. Derechos territoriales de los pueblos indígenas en Colombia, Universidad del Rosario, 2016

- Uli Stelzner, Kolumbien - Der lange Weg zum Frieden, Film, 2018

- Francis Hallé, 50 ans d’explorations et d’études botaniques en forêt tropicale, Museo éditions, 2016

Studio Anne LacatonETHZ - Lacaton & Vassal

PROFESSUR FÜR ARCHITEKTUR UND ENTWURFDEPARTEMENT ARCHITEKTUR, ETH ZÜRICHSTUDIO ANNE LACATON, LACATON & VASSAL-PROFESSORAnne Lacaton-STUDIO ASSISTANTSSimon DurandIlona SchneiderCarina Sacher-ADMINISTRATIONClaudia Janz-ADDRESSONA G14/15Neunbrunnenstrasse 508050 Zürich+41 44 633 20 35www.lacaton.arch.ethz.ch

a new indigenous university in the colombian rainforest

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