The Maya Zug Project is a transdisciplinary and collaborative project that seeks to question the lens through which we see and analyze the world and our reality.

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What is progress? Are mega-infrastructures really synonymous with progress? What roles play science in our perception of the world? Is there another narrative, that has been erased during the colonial project, that offers an alternative way of reading and perceiving reality and new possibilities for coexisting with non-human beings?

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The dominant narrative has historically silenced a large and complex variety of stories, tales and fables that tell a subversive and resistant narrative. Indigenous narratives are an example of the subversive power of stories. Indeed they subvert and re-create what the Western academy puts forward as valid ways of knowing and present alternatives to it. In the face of colonial extermination, the articulation of Indigenous stories and tales are inherently resistant and threatening.​​

The exchange and research between myself and the Mayan scholar and indigenous leader IQ BALAM - Juan José Chiriz Cuat resulted in a symbolic image and story that represents an alternative interpretation of the mega-infrastructures built without any respect for the non-human beings living in those environments. This story tells how these large neoliberal projects can be reinterpreted from an indigenous perspective.
Through the QR CODE in the image, people can access and listen to an audio with this story and access a web page with information and inspiration sources on the topic.

The story narrated by IQ BALAM subverts the way the Western world is used to perceive non-human beings and raises new perspectives on how we should re-think and decolonise our relationship with these beings in response to the troubled Anthropocene era in which we find ourselves.

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Listen to the story here: