“…growing spiritually and practically. […] Abubuya, a word that in the Mojeno language means ‘to let oneself go with the flow’ […], in the Amazon basin, when the river rises, it is time to move to a higher location and to go ‘abubuya’.”
By Sina Ribak & Raquel Schwartz, KIOSKO / Arts Collaboratory, Bolivia
Abubuya, a word that in the Mojeño language means "to let oneself go with the flow", was the first thing we learned about this culture during our journey to the river Mamoré. The Mojeño community lives in the oriental part of Bolivia in the Beni region where rivers and fluvial cycles are impacting people's lives. Here in the Amazon basin, when the river rises, it is time to move to a higher location and to go "abubuya". We were immediately captivated by the sound of the word and its simple and real meaning with so much metaphorical content. This term, abubuya, not only became the title of the project but it was also the spirit and energy that moved the whole development and process of the project. A dozen artists from Argentinia, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, USA, México, Perú, Puerto Rico and Venezuela followed the current of the Mamoré river aboard the flotel Reina de Enin. Working, playing and creating with the mojeña community El Rosario we learnt about the river (hi)stories. During weeks and months following the ‘Abubuya KM0 International Artist Workshop’, river creatures such as caimans, captains and pink dolphins appeared in our dreams. Their cosmos makes itself visible, becoming more like a vision than a memory. Since then, in KIOSKO we use abubuya in our language in the daily institutional and personal life to express the necessity to go with a rhythm of processes given by 'nature'.
The C-words campaign is inspired by the format of Casco’s third Annual Assembly We Owe Each Other Everything that takes place online in December 2020. Participants were invited to reflect on their collective working practice by choosing a word beginning with C.
Together these formed C-words for the Commons and were a starting point for the different Assembly groups to discuss the diverse stories and experiences that stemmed from these words. The outcomes of the Assembly mapping workshops were to highlight new ideas, relationships and creative entanglements to adopt when working collectively.
In 2021, Casco is launching a poster-campaign that illustrates six C-words (Coin, Community, Care, Climate, Cosmos and Culture) by six Utrecht-based illustrators. The posters are disseminated all around Utrecht and online especially aiming to appeal to a younger audience to engage with these urgent issues and to visit Casco’s website to learn more about the Commons through art.
The C-words campaign identifies ecological, social and economic urgencies from which discussions, projects and coalitions can be derived in order to imagine new ways of resiliently tackling these issues through collaborative practices and thinking.
Resources
Abubuya
