THE EN-CHANTED GARDEN OPENS AT NEW SFER IK OPEN-AIR MUSEUM IN TULUM, MEXICO
The En-chanted Garden is a living work of art, commissioned by SFER IK Museion, curated by Marcello Dantas and created by artist Cristina Ochoa in collaboration with Roth Architecture. It functions as a portal of time and ancestral memory. It is already an ecological sanctuary, a biodiversity reserve, a vegetable pharmacy, a school and a space for the exchange of knowledge, where hope fora better world grows, learning together from the cosmogony of the native peoples, to re-create other ways of collectively creating a conscious future, in balance with the rhythms of nature.
We use ancestral technologies to reconnect us with the sacred.The garden is home to diverse communities of species: plants, fungi, lichens, animals, pollinators, insects, bats, reptiles, birds.Transdisciplinary communities: Mayan spiritual leaders, x-meens and herbalist doctors from other latitudes, who give us access to the immense pharmaceutical, mystical and cultural of theirancestors. Multidisciplinary groups of artists, artisans, scientists, researchers, curious, who bring together various forms of knowledge in this space, seeking communication with the sacred and natural world.
Book NowWe use ancestral technologies to reconnect us with the sacred.The garden is home to diverse communities of species: plants, fungi, lichens, animals, pollinators, insects, bats, reptiles, birds.Transdisciplinary communities: Mayan spiritual leaders, x-meens and herbalist doctors from other latitudes, who give us access to the immense pharmaceutical, mystical and cultural of theirancestors. Multidisciplinary groups of artists, artisans, scientists, researchers, curious, who bring together various forms of knowledge in this space, seeking communication with the sacred and natural world.
CURATORSHIP
The idea is both simple and powerful: a Botanical Garden that gathers the sacred plants of the indigenous América and more specifically the Mayan culture. A place that keeps the plants alive, identifies them in all languages and in their scientific nomenclature, as well as their medicinal and ritual uses. This site is a center for research, conservation, gathering, and ritual experiences. These plants, which have remained present in the local culture for millennia, were sometimes considered merely as weeds. Cristina Ochoa dedicated her life to deciphering these plants and their powers. This knowledge is solidified in this space of permanence and experience. A Garden to be sung and to
enchant those who have the courage to see, listen, and heal through the forces that connect us by the roots.
enchant those who have the courage to see, listen, and heal through the forces that connect us by the roots.
Marcello Dantas
SFER IK Creative Director
SFER IK Creative Director
MANIFESTO
BY ARTIST CRISTINA OCHOA
We ask forgiveness for the damage caused and the impact that our action may have on the Mayan jungle with the realization of this project.
We offer and ask permission with the help of the spiritual guardians of this territory, to humbly enter the jungle, seeking with our efforts and actions to protect and honor the existing life.
We commit ourselves to respect and care for all living beings that inhabit this sacred territory of the Mayan jungle.
We seek the safeguard, preservation and learning of ancestral medicines from the knowledge that the guardians of this wisdom have passed on to us.
We use art and ritual, in an exercise of political spirituality. They are the tools to protect life and the knowledge of our heritage to remember and create a better future.
We elevate prayer into duty to care for the earth and the precious ecosystem.
We will build a relationship based on eco-feminism, to support each other in the care and protection of the rights of the earth and its inhabitants.
We are committed to learning and transmitting what we have received in order to safeguard and communicate the importance of biodiversity, both plant and animal.
We will make a conscious and sustainable use of biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other forms of creation for the conservation of the environment.
We open a space for the community, with free access for the Mayan people and locals.
We are committed to trans-disciplinary research, saving seeds and plant DNA hand in hand with seed guardians, creating planting networks to spread and multiply the gardens, orchards and germobanks.
We conceive a space for research and learning from different disciplines based on ancestry, art and science.
We offer and ask permission with the help of the spiritual guardians of this territory, to humbly enter the jungle, seeking with our efforts and actions to protect and honor the existing life.
We commit ourselves to respect and care for all living beings that inhabit this sacred territory of the Mayan jungle.
We seek the safeguard, preservation and learning of ancestral medicines from the knowledge that the guardians of this wisdom have passed on to us.
We use art and ritual, in an exercise of political spirituality. They are the tools to protect life and the knowledge of our heritage to remember and create a better future.
We elevate prayer into duty to care for the earth and the precious ecosystem.
We will build a relationship based on eco-feminism, to support each other in the care and protection of the rights of the earth and its inhabitants.
We are committed to learning and transmitting what we have received in order to safeguard and communicate the importance of biodiversity, both plant and animal.
We will make a conscious and sustainable use of biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other forms of creation for the conservation of the environment.
We open a space for the community, with free access for the Mayan people and locals.
We are committed to trans-disciplinary research, saving seeds and plant DNA hand in hand with seed guardians, creating planting networks to spread and multiply the gardens, orchards and germobanks.
We conceive a space for research and learning from different disciplines based on ancestry, art and science.
ABOUT CRISTINA OCHOA
Cristina Ochoa is a Colombian contemporary artist, living inMéxico since 2011. Her art practice has been developed for almosttwenty years, first about models of consumption and furthermorethe relationship with plants and substances, from a critical,ecological, feminist and mystical approach. With differentstrategies, as making gardens as artworks, workshops, developingprocesses of interaction with communities in Mexico, Colombiaand other countries. Bringing ancient or popular knowledgetowards new ways of living in the contemporary realm, withrespect to others and different relationships between ourselves,other cultures, social contexts, and the beings we live with: plants,animals, fungi, microorganisms, or what is called environment,creatures that we are not aware of, to create trans-speciescommunities.
Pharmakon and other past projects are part of this research aboutpharmacy, substances, herbalism, and the history of plants,ethnobotanics, and medicine. Thus, the work has been movingaround plants, food, drugs, rituals, ceremonies, trying tounderstand our communication with the vegetal and the animalworld. The artworks are urban gardens, forests, jungle and otherprojects to stimulate communication with plants and to preserveand expand conscience.
Pharmakon and other past projects are part of this research aboutpharmacy, substances, herbalism, and the history of plants,ethnobotanics, and medicine. Thus, the work has been movingaround plants, food, drugs, rituals, ceremonies, trying tounderstand our communication with the vegetal and the animalworld. The artworks are urban gardens, forests, jungle and otherprojects to stimulate communication with plants and to preserveand expand conscience.
She studied architecture and visual arts at the Xaverian Universityand at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, between1993 and 1999. After developing an independent art practice, shewent to Mexico in 2011 to exhibit and became part of SOMAMéxico art program first generation. She took part in severalexhibitions, workshops, artistic residences. Among otherindependent projects, she had shown her work extensively indifferent international institutions, Museums, art galleries andcultural spaces.
At the Salón Nacional de Artistas in Colombia en2010, Ex Teresa Arte Actual Museum Mexico, 2011, Arte OcupaBrasil in 2013, MAZ Museum of Art in Zapopan, Jalisco in 2015.Gallery Angels Barcelona BAR Project SOMA in 2016, ArtResidency, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Arafura, Museum of Art ofCarrillo Gil, in 2021, Anahuacalli Museum, Festival Sound Plus2021. Jumex Museum Acciones a Distancia, CDMX, La tierra alrevés, Izamal, 2022. SFER IK art in Tulum, 2022. El corazón delmonte, Palace of the School of Medicine at the UNAM. SommersGallery London, Fluc Viena, among others.
At the Salón Nacional de Artistas in Colombia en2010, Ex Teresa Arte Actual Museum Mexico, 2011, Arte OcupaBrasil in 2013, MAZ Museum of Art in Zapopan, Jalisco in 2015.Gallery Angels Barcelona BAR Project SOMA in 2016, ArtResidency, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Arafura, Museum of Art ofCarrillo Gil, in 2021, Anahuacalli Museum, Festival Sound Plus2021. Jumex Museum Acciones a Distancia, CDMX, La tierra alrevés, Izamal, 2022. SFER IK art in Tulum, 2022. El corazón delmonte, Palace of the School of Medicine at the UNAM. SommersGallery London, Fluc Viena, among others.
VISIT US
Open from 10:00 to 19:00, Daily
Aldea Zama, 77765 Tulum, Quintana Roo.
Aldea Zama, 77765 Tulum, Quintana Roo.
