The "Maya" Zug Project is a transdisciplinary and collaborative project that seeks to question the historical lens through which we perceive and define progress and its development.
What is progress? Are mega-infrastructures really synonymous with progress? What role does science play in our perception of the world? Is there another narrative, erased during the colonial project, that offers an alternative way of reading and perceiving reality and new possibilities for coexisting with other-than-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. Indigenous narratives are an example of the subversive power of stories. Indeed they subvert and recreate 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 symbolic image of the project reinterprets big neoliberal projects from an indigenous perspective. These mega-infrastructures, built in indigenous territories and financed by Western transnational corporations, reproduce and perpetuate colonial dynamics. This is the case of the "Maya" Train, which is currently under construction in Mexico and funded by several European companies, including German ones. The story narrated by IQ BALAM draws from Mayan mythology and offers 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.
The project is a collaboration between the visual artist Chiara and the Mayan scholar and activist IQ BALAM.
The research on the participation of German and European companies in the Tren Maya-Project is from Recherche AG (Netz Der Rebellion).
Special thanks to all the contributors and to Caterina and Leonardo for the help with graphic and sound.
The "Maya" Zug project is no substitute for direct action. Merely drawing attention to the problem is not enough; what is needed is further collective mobilization to pressure government institutions, in order to bring about real solutions.
This is an open platform: if you have any other contributions that could be related to the topic and could be published on this page, please send them to: mayazugproject@gmail.com