Bogotá, Colombia is the colonial name of the high savannah territory that saw me be born among tall buildings, old majestic trees, elevators, lush back yards, adjacent giant mountains, traffic noise and all the intensity, beauty, ecological degradation, survival, and stark economic contrasts embedded in the capital of a nation beaming with cultures, nature, and passion.
As a child, i had the many privileges of a middle class girl with well-off abuelxs. My young parents worked hard for a dream of matching their parent’s wealth but alas they never did, allowing me to grow among the middle class while witnessing and sometimes participating in “elite” lifestyles. I spent weekends and school breaks between my mother’s parents’ country house in the mountains and my father’s parents’ apartment in Cartagena. For these privileges I am full of gratitude because they served as sanctuaries for my sense of eco-spiritual connection and search for my connections with something larger than myself. In the country house I grew up exploring the land, running wild, playing in the woods, chasing chickens, riding donkeys, and rolling down hills. The historic city of Cartagena taught me about our human roots as world (volunteer and forced) travelers, and saved me from completely forgetting my African roots and the history of African and Indigenous slavery and resistance that built the foundations of who we are.
As a young adult, I learned “adulting skills” riding public transportation for an average of 2.5 hours a day to go to college, developing a callus for urban routines and air pollution. My ecological awareness was awakened in the company of elder trees, araucarias, and oaks, irrigation ditches, strawberries and fresh cream, grilled corn on the cob, guava juice, arepas, and stories of ancient sun worshippers, corn stewards, and goldsmiths.The paradoxes of poverty and wealth, lush nature and obliteration, and racism in a nation of mestizxs, made my mind and heart restless, curious, and motivated to seek answers about who i am and who i came here to be.
At 18 years old, I found myself living in the Amazon, opening doors outside my college life bubble and hoping to gain hints about my life´s purpose through the energy of the jungle and indigenous wisdom. During my time there, i experienced the spiritual voice of the Amazon river, inviting me to serve the Earth and to help people know ourselves as part of nature again.
With a hard earned degree in Finance and International Relations and a deep craving to listen to my relentless desire to be an artist, i joined La Caravana ArcoIris por la Paz in 1998, a nomad community of artists and activists moved by a strong desire to help heal the Earth. We lived as a modern nomad tribe, teaching through theater, planting seeds of change and igniting collective reflection and action to nurture the emerging environmental movements along the continent of the Americas. I met the love of my life during this time: a brilliant artist and eco-designer from Montana, with whom i have shared a dynamic life for 25 years. After 7 years of splitting our lives between Montana and the Caravan, Jason and I decided to buy land near Missoula to create an ecovillage project that we sustained for 5 years.
The Caravan and ecovillage living and founding, galvanized my motivation to create ecosapien evolution, an art concept that helped me understand the changes I was going through as I questioned modernity and its precepts about how and what one should live and aspire to. These searches and experiences also led me into the world of education as a leader of young people through Arts programs in private schools where i infused curricular demands with peace and ecological activism. Along this path i landed in world famous Green School in Bali, Indonesia.
During my time there, where teachers, students, staff, and parents share a strong commitment to be change makers, I had the honor to work in close proximity to high school activists. Witnessing their courage, determination and dedication, I could also see through their despair, anger, resignation, and at times cynicism. I began to sense new questions affecting my work as a Theater Arts specialist: What if the hero’s journey of the ecoactivist savior was flawed? Are we activists because we have to or because we love our world? What do we do with eco-grief? Who are we if we cannot “save” the planet? What are the stories that want to emerge at this time to help us be eco sapien?
With these questions pushing me in new directions, I put my teaching career on hiatus and began exploring the realms of futuristic bio-centric art and philosophies to feed pedagogies that may awaken ecospaiens inside people. When hope seems to be depleted and the motions of industrialization and polarizing politics appear to be insurmountable, all there might be left is trying strange new things that might lead us to behave understanding that we are interconnected with Life instead of separate and in charge of “it”. What does it mean to be nature? – is currently my synthesis question.
As of Spring 2024, i am based in Missoula, MT, dedicated to the creation of Ecosapien Evolution as a social enterprise that embraces my ideas and work, generating art and education for ecosocial change.