Secret Sarayaku (2017-ongoing)

The Kichwa people of Sarayaku, in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador, have always had a physical and spiritual connection with their surroundings. To the Kichwa people, the woods are a living being. Everything is alive, has a soul, and is interrelated. They consider themselves the rainforest’s guardian and see it as the Amazon’s task to maintain a balance in the world. Since the early 2000s, the Kichwa have been fighting off environmental threats like oil exploration. In 2012, they won a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian Government at the Inte-American Court of Human Rights. Their fight, however, is far from over.

The Ecuadorian photographer Misha Vallejo grew up at the rim of the rainforest. He has been documenting the lives of the Kichwa people for the past three years. Western society generally attempts to resolve problems by taking care of each aspect separately, he notices, while the Kichwa philosophy looks for a holistic solution—one that benefits all. Secret Sarayaku is, in line with Kichwa philosophy, a holistic project. At its core it is an interactive web platform, but it will also include a photo book, an exhibition and an audio-visual play. This audio-visual play is produced in co-creation with Misha and a Dutch radio/podcast maker and spatial designer. Secret Sarayaku as an audio-visual play will be launched at the World Press Photo Festival from April 17 and 18, before travelling back to Ecuador where it will be given to the Kichwa people of Sarayaku and will be shown at Quito’s Contemporary Art Centre.

The interactive website will give the community a communication tool, helping the Kichwa spread their ancestral knowledge with regard to environmental care; it will also hopefully inspire other communities across the globe to do the same.

Vallejo is our first Docker NEXT: after his first stay with us, he went back to the Kichwa people in the Amazon rainforest with a sharper focus. Docker NEXT is the newest addition to Docking Station’s program: Dockers who have almost finished their projects return to their Amsterdam Docking Station to complete the final stages of their project. We team them up with a Dutch creator to develop an audio-visual presentation of their work. Working together with a Dutch radio maker and spatial designer, Vallejo will be designing an audio-visual play, before travelling back to Ecuador.

Who? Misha Vallejo

From Ecuador

Docking Maart 19 - April 20 2020

Working on Secret Sarayaku

About Combatting environmental pollution, the Kichwa people of Sarayaku, Ecuador, have always had a spiritual connection with their homeland, the Amazon rainforest. Their decades-old struggle is far from over.

Misha Vallejo (1985; Riobamba, Ecuador) works in the field of documentary and art photography. In 2010, Vallejo earned his degree in Photojournalism at St. Petersburg Faculty of Photojournalism (Russia), and in 2014 his MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (UK). Vallejo works as a freelance photographer and has been a member of the photography collective Runa Photos since 2012. In 2016, he published his first photo book Al Otro Lado, which received praise at photo festivals around the world, including Arles (France; Best Author Book), International Prize Felifa-Fola (Argentina; Honourable Mention), Féria Miolo (Brazil; Best Photography Book), Athens Photo Festival (Greece).

https://www.mishavallejo.com

The production of the audiovisual performance 'Secret Sarayaku' is partly made possible by:

ambassador

MAGDALENA HERRERA

Director of Photography at GEO magazine, France

Misha Vallejo is one of the best representatives of an important new current in Latin American photography. He focuses on exploring the little-seen history of his continent. 
He is a young documentary photographer who brings to his journalistic work a hint of magical realism. This particularity can be seen both in the form and the content. For instance, his work on the Kishwas of Sarayaku in Ecuador confronts traditional lifestyles and beliefs with modernity in a lyrical and delicate way that avoids the ethnographic clichés of photographing first nation communities.