Our Ancestral View of Territory

Photographs from an exhibition in the Colombian Embassy in Paris in March 2010. This was the first exhibition organized by the Zhigoneshi Communications Centre and shows the role played by indigenous organizations in raising awareness of the ancestral cosmovision of the indigenous people of the mountains of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia).The idea of recording in words and images the ancestral cosmovision of territorial organization in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta was first mooted in 2001. The photographs and videos were taken by the indigenous peoples themselves as a means of documenting their culture, thereby helping it to be considered as part of the region’s natural and cultural heritage and promoting moves to ensure its conservation.The indigenous organization Gonawindúa Tayrona, a producer of digital material, possesses an important photographic and audiovisual archive that includes images of many cultural aspects of the indigenous peoples that act as custodians of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.