Envisioning the Future

Choclo y Chicha: a zine for (and from) the Andean Diaspora

[Generations]

49 Days

I was right there with you in your mission statement, about feeling the dual exclusion from both Latinx and U.S. heritages. I've felt that so much growing up as a Peruvian in the United States, and I'm so glad that this organization exists 🙏I resonated so much with Marisol's poem, with the mixture of Spanish and English, and with the connection to your grandfather and thinking about future generations' connection to their heritage.I resonated with Elena's piece, when you spoke about going to Peru and the eagerness to fill a hole made of solitude.I was right there with Analisa in so many parts of her story, riding on the swerving bus with the sheer drop to the ocean, when you met your brother for the first time, and forgetting how to speak in any language.Super appreciate all that the contributors shared during both of your events. Congrats on this publication, looking forward to the next one 🙂

<a href="/artemiosans" target="_self">@Artemio Morales</a> thank you so much for your poetry of a mesaage! it's an honor to have pieces of myself living on this online community.

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Chile

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Multimedia Storytelling

Zine

New Media Literature

Webzine

Poetry

Politics

Essay

Experimental

Slice of Life

Perzine

Huancavilca

Kichwa

Aymara

Native American

Cherokee

Irish

Indigenous

Quechua

Latinx

Andes

Cantonese

English

Spanish

A few minutes

Listen to Analisa Freitas' oral history

Colección Cisneros Exhibition and Essay

Alan Poma's website

Newgrounds

Itch.io

Red, green, and yellow art with choclo and geometric iconography.

The title "Cultural Correspondence" along with the illustration of a hands holding uprooted plants and dirt

An abstract image of bubbles and dots and rays of sunshine in a blue and pink color palette

Title 'Dear Charles' over a man holding his heart in a meditative stance

Portrait of a child with night sky and plants in the background

Poem with pink graphic above and a picture of a mother with a baby.

Text with light blue graphic depicting a sister and brother hugging.

Portrait of a young child against a pink background; plants emerge from the child's face.

Collage of antique and modern pictures of women.

A sketched portrait of a woman who is smiling broadly

A sketched landscape of a person looking out over a lake. There are trees in the background and the sun is overhead.

An outstretched hand coupled with the words, 'Reach for the Sublime'

A Modern Ghost

First Generation

Andinx

In May 2020, Rimay Raiz launched Choclo y Chicha, a zine that shares the contributions of the Andean/Andinx diaspora through poetry, art, and storytelling. Both choclo and chicha are Quechua words for our ancestral foods of fresh corn and maize drinks, we chose them to reflect our cultural connections and create a space for a uniquely Andean zine. Chicha is also a type of music, Peruvian cumbia, that musicologists and sociologists claim emerged in the Amazon of Peru out of a sentiment of exclusion and otherness by dominant white, criollo elites. We chose to include zines as part of our core mission because they would allow us to showcase creative media works from our communities on our own terms, without the need to compromise our vision through mainstream publishing. We also want to acknowledge the diverse ways that our communities express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, some orally, while others visually or through text. We hope to distribute the zines widely and inspire others in our community to value and share their own stories and experiences through this, and other, mediums.Our first zine features profound stories such as “Camino hacia la Boca del Lobo-Simiatug” by Jimena Vega, powerful poems such as “Mama Negra, Mama Tierra” by Mónica Carrillo Zegarra, and art by colectivo member Layqa Nuna Yawar, Lenny Correa.

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 1

Making AI Art Responsibly: A Field Guide

Colo-Mítolo-Gítal

shortly, briefly

Different Nourishment: Exordium

Beanie Hat Prototype

Philippines

China

A creative game of telephone, this was created for the <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/community/project/alternative-worlds/1">Alternative Worlds</a> shared collection and contains poetry, artwork, and reflections on our creative processes as they relate to our Andean and Asian cultural heritages.

Located across the United States, each person passed the project to the next, who then responded to the previous piece, building up the collaboration via long distance in a way befitting of our times — digital, cultural correspondence :D

Cultural Correspondence

In the Andes, geometric images known as tocapus carry within them a coded language whose meaning has been lost and that no Western science can read. However, the ancestors of the Andes did not themselves believe in death — and the meaning of these geometries may yet continue to live on within Andean descendants.

The Manifesto calls on those of Andean heritage to awaken these meanings by looking into their past, then project the meaning of these symbols into the future through a process of transrationality, whereby one may acquire the vision that will birth new Andean technologies and the reshaping of our reality.

Andean Futurist Manifesto

SHTF: A Post-Apocalyptic Pick Your Path Adventure

This is an experimental multimedia essay, written to my friend Charles, reflecting on the act of making art. It includes writing, illustrations (doodles), and music.It's also a test of my internal studio tools for creating new media literature experiences for web in Cocos Creator.This is the third in a series of letters we've been exchanging: <a href="https://www.altsalt.com/playlist/dear-art-dear-charles/2" target="_blank">Dear Art, Dear Charles</a>.

(Dear Charles #3) Thinking, Feeling, Creating

Rooombra to the Rescue

Test Publication

Ancashina

SGI Buddhist

The theme of Choclo y Chicha Vol. 2 is ​family portraits​. Our goal was to inspire our communities to re-explore and revisit their family histories, as demonstrated through pictures, while we sheltered-in-place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked that all submissions include two pictures (one from the past and one from the present) and an accompanying text to draw connections between the two. Folks were invited to submit their pictures and text however they wished, whether as separate pieces or as collages or other works of art. In this section we feature pieces such as excerpts from the incredible oral history of Analisa Freitas and a beautiful poem by Marisol Silva, “when I make chicha morada and play your huaynos full blast, and I carry a backpack on the 7 train from Queens to Brooklyn brimming with jars of aji panca, aji amarillos, rocotos, I hold onto Ayni when I can’t remember words in any language, I hold onto Ayni, when I remember that who we are as a people is much too strong to ever be forgotten,” she writes. Additionally, inspired by our colectivo member Jamie San Andres’ call to action, we are excited to introduce a new section to our zine entitled ​Andean Political Reflections.​ When we first started dreaming up our zine series, we had no idea the state of the world we would be in. Since November 2019, we have seen unbearable violence and injustice across our diaspora, from the protests, uprisings, and government repression in Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, the U.S., and most recently, Peru, we know that it is important now more than ever to continue building spaces for solidarity, dialogue and discussion. Those of us Andeans living in the belly of the beast must find it our moral duty to take a stand in solidarity. This position is a principle that has guided our work since the beginning, and it is impossible to do cultural work without addressing the political. Hence, this section will be a space for community dialogue with our friends, compañerxs, partner organizations, and others to share their perspectives and reflections on important political and historical moments in the Andean diaspora. &nbsp;

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 2

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I'm a software developer, director of Artmayu Studios, and founder of AltSalt.I love the digital and literary worlds, especially exploring new kinds of digital literature, from experimental multimedia books to narrative adventure games.Currently, I'm in the process of learning more about my Andean background, and thinking through how to bridge that heritage with the world of technology.

Guttenberg Arts is dedicated to increasing opportunities for artists that encourage artistic evolution while creating cultural experiences for the community that promote creative thinking. Since 2014, we have promoted the visual arts through providing practicing artists with the space and time to develop their work, engage with the public, and expand their community.Participating artists benefit from increased career opportunities and public exposure through peer collaboration and promotion to curators and collectors in the tri-state area.We enable artists to explore new techniques in our studio (a 4,500 sf facility for the visual arts accommodating working in 2-D &amp; 3-D including printmaking and ceramics) and to share their experiences through artistic mentorship, creating new opportunities for artistic evolution.  Supporting Guttenberg Arts will provide artists the space and time they need to develop work that represents the uniqueness of their voice and the platform to share it.Guttenberg Arts hosts a dynamic array of public programming that includes, free community workshops for all ages, panel talks and artist lectures providing diverse perspectives and actively engaging a range of audiences inspiring new dialogs. Guttenberg Arts aims to be a cultural cornerstone that serves the arts and artists within the community to create meaningful experiences.

Paper Crown Press is an artist-run publisher committed to creating uniquely designed artists’ books and magazines that push the boundaries of publishing while promoting interdisciplinary collaborations across visual art and literary forms. We collaborate with a range of artists, designers and writers every year and encourage unfettered pursuit of personal vision, without regard to current trends. Since 2010, Paper Crown Press has been publishing Carrier Pigeon, a quarterly magazine of illustrated fiction and fine art. More recently we began publishing outstanding and affordable books related to the field of art and literature and the collision of both.

Carrier Pigeon is an artist-run magazine of illustrated fiction and fine art. Four times a year we put creative control into the hands of the contributing writers, illustrators, fine artists and designers in order to promote respectful interdisciplinary collaboration. The results are organic, collaborative, and quickly evolving compositions featured alongside full portfolios of contemporary work by fine artists from an unrestricted demographic range. We believe that loyalty to each artist’s personal vision, without regard to current trends, provides the best environment in which to collaborate on fully personal work. The main goal of this journal is to provide a magazine that is, in itself, a piece of artwork.

The Andean diaspora* community in the United States is confronted with discrimination and a sense of dual exclusion from both Latinx and white US heritages due to histories of colonialism and imperialism that continue to impose Western epistemologies across time and borders. Rima(y) Raíz, an Andean diaspora collective based in NYC, NJ, IL and CA, confronts these issues by documenting and sharing inter-generational oral hxstories of the Andean diaspora in efforts to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about their communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of their elders for the next generation, and create a sense of solidarity. &nbsp;We are inspired by Andean notions of time, space, and community such as pachakutik and the ayllu and we choose oral hxstory as a medium due to its inter-disciplinary, borderless nature. Oral hxstory also acts as a way to decolonize the production of knowledge. The main components of the project are (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, including community leaders (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss the stories via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and virtual Raymi or parties, and (4) organize gatherings of Andean organizations and leaders to celebrate and unite cultural advocacy efforts.Coloniality may have traversed time and space, but so has our resistance.*The Andean diasporic community includes people with South American heritage from Andean countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Hence, Rimay Raiz utilizes the term Andean to refer to this region of South America, as opposed to folks that are strictly from the highlands. We remain inclusive of the many nationalities in the Andean region, and recognize that people that may identify with diverse backgrounds, such as that of the coast and the Amazon, Black, Indigenous, mestizo, and we welcome all people who identify with our mission and background, whether they are recent immigrants, second generation, or have not connected to their ancestral countries for generations.

I am gardener and composter passionate about equity in the food system. Quinoa scholar and oral history and community archive enthusiast. Runasimita yachapakuq. Member of the Rimay Raiz colectivo.&nbsp;

Ecuadorian-American sociologist, of Huancavilca and Kichwa descent. Bi-coastal, born in Queens, NY and raised in both NY and CA. Musician, community activist, project coordinator at an immigrant and workers rights org, and co-founder of Rimay Raiz.&nbsp;

Bridging the worlds of the West and Andes through storytelling...Artmayu is a digital book production studio, and the studio behind AltSalt!Our name comes from Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, and Mayu, the celestial river from Andean cosmology.In addition to maintaining the AltSalt website, we make animated ebooks, games, and other creative digital projects.

Colombian-United-Statesian born + based in Queens, NYC and raised in Orlando, Florida.&nbsp;I'm interested in the narrative potential of the internet; A web that is playful, poetic and surprising.&nbsp;

Shirley identifies as a queer, asian-american woman of color. She works as a community organizer in Northern Colorado and as a yoga teacher. When not being self-referential in a bio, you can find her painting watercolors, biking around town, dancing, or reading a book.

Imanalla! I'm Sandy, a zinester librarian in sunny southern California. I started making zines as a way to practice and maintain Quechua, my ancestral language and one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages of the Americas. I now feel like I have too many zine ideas and too little time, but I try to make it work!&nbsp;I participate in several Andinx community projects like the annual May Sumak Quichwa Film Showcase and oral history collective Rimay Raíz. I love creating spaces for our community to share our cultures, languages, and experiences in the diaspora.&nbsp;In my spare time, I enjoy reading/watching things in the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, or horror. I also like to weave and garden (especially with, you guessed it, Andean potatoes!).&nbsp;

ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯ / Cherokee ᎠᏎᎩ ᎠᏓᏅᏙ / Twospirit I enjoy extravagant patterns, psychedelic colors, and interesting lines. Stories that deal with Indigenous peoples' histories and religions as well as modern issues are what I crave. I research native plants + fungi + lichens especially in regards to those used as food and medicine. I also study architecture and industrial design with a particular affinity for anything in the realm of Art Deco.

Writing, scriptwriting, andean ethnofuturism, nueva trova, improvised music, folk music, non white centric SciFi, decolonization and decolonising art

I'm a writer and cartographer. I mostly write scif/fantasy and have worked on some table top rpg projects such as the in*die zine and unbreakable rpg. I manage the integral states project, where I draw US states and territories as fantasy maps and pair them with pre-colonial histories.&nbsp;