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?

The dominant narrative has historically silenced a large and complex variety of stories, tales and fables that tell a subversive and resistant narrative. These stories subvert and re-create what the Western academy puts forward as valid ways of knowing and present alternatives to it.​

The exchange and research between myself and the Mayan scholar and indigenous leader IQ BALAM - Juan José Chiriz Cuat results in a symbolic image and story that re-interprets big neoliberal projects from an indigenous perspective. These mega-infrastructures built in indigenous territories and financed by Western transnational corporations reproduce and reiterate colonial dynamics. This is the case of the "Maya" Train, which is being built in Mexico. The story narrated by IQ BALAM has its roots in Mayan mythology and raises new perspectives on how we should re-think and decolonise our relationship with other-than-human beings in response to the troubled Anthropocene era in which we find ourselves.

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.

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Listen to the story here: