Di Hu is a PhD candidate, based out of Ayacucho. Her project is dealing with comparing allocations of space in weaving and textile production centers of the Inca period and the Colonial era. I was familiar with most of the theorists (such as Foucault) she referenced, as well as theories of spatial use and division (thank you installation art!), and personally felt that her conclusions were pretty common sense (weavers in during the Inca period were important people, and were afforded a lot of freedom to work in a communal setting, while weavers during the Colonial era were mostly prisioners, and therefore their spaces were highly controlled, limited, and monitored). Regardless of this, I pulled her aside afterword and told her the layout for the contemporary communal weaving spaces at Chinchero and Sallac were very similar to the diagrams and layouts of the Inca period weaving spaces. She seemed really excited by this and told me she wanted to visit one of these spaces next time she was in Cusco.
The other projects included:
Adrienne—archeologist—studying Inca shrine sites north of Cusco City.
Rob – Mechanical Engineer & water project specialist—working with a handful of NGO in the Cusco Region on water management and treatment for healthy consumption.
Martha—geography-- researching the introduction of Spanish water powered grain mills and how this technology changed the landscape in Lima.
Miguel—Poverty alleviation and prevention
Carmen—Chemistry—working on Ionic Liquid technology to potentially create a safe, water-based solvent alternative to things like Gamsol and Acetone. These liquids also have similar properties to Chlorine, and the hope is that they might be able to create a chemical that makes water safe to consume without the chlorine taste and is potentially safer to use than chlorine.
There were also two US Scholar Fulbright Grantees (for professionals as opposed to people who are just beginning their careers):
Maria—Video and Installation artist—doing a videography project on the theme “working hands.” She’s creating a series of videos where she watches Peruvian women work and they tell stories (the association of repetitive work and storytelling is not a new one, but is one that fascinates me beyond all measure). She will be doing an installation of the finished work here in Lima, as well as in Flordia, where she teaches at a university.
Bartholomew Dean—anthropologist and ethnologist—Has been working the last 25 years with communities in the Amazon region of Peru on establishing cultural studies of the peoples and traditions of the region. As he said, the jungle take up over half the country and yet there is no official program of study at a major institution in Peru to better understand and document the people and traditions from the region.
Of all of these people, Maria and I made an INSTANT connection, and Marcela had to usher us apart twice while they were trying to get our Thanksgiving lunch started. We’re going to talk more as we have so many interests similar in our work and the ideas behind our work, and I’m going to take her to Chinchero sometime in December so she can potentially film one of the weavers for her project. I also have a project in the works I think I’d like her to be a part of… (Ooo mystery project!)
Ceviche
After lunch, pretty much everyone went back to their respective habitations and took a nap. I went out and found dinner with Rob at a local place in Miraflores (had some REALLY fresh Ceviche ie. raw fish “cooked” in a mix of lime in vinegar with herbs and served with corn and sweet potatoes). Carmen and Adrienne joined us for drinks and we were all out far too late for our various traveling plans the next morning.
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