Here's to another inspiring year filled with both challenges and learnings, deep reflection and creative action! Through the sharing and production of cultural events and exhibitions, our goal is to give a voice and a platform for Amazonian art, culture, and knowledge. Throughout the Peruvian Amazon, our team continues to explore and develop new relationships with Indigenous communities in order to gain a deeper understanding of their realities and how we can be a bridge for creative support, opportunity, and cultural continuity. 

At the beginning of 2025, we hosted anthropologists and academics to share knowledge around their work in the Amazon, such as Cynthia Cardenas and her experience with the Masato tradition of the Matsigenka women, as well as the “Wisdom of the Leaf” closing event with the McKenna Academy and Wade Davis.

Our trip to the Ucayali region in March prompted a call for immediate action, where we were asked to generate emergency relief support in the form of food and supplies due to the record-breaking floods that occurred in the Ucayali region amongst the Shipibo-Konibo and Iskonawa communities with whom we’ve shared long-standing relationships. The climate crisis continues to impact many communities living in vulnerability.

On April 11, 2025, we welcomed photographer Diego Pérez Romero for the screening of his short documentary “Shirampari” along with journalist Ivan Brehaut, who brought us up to date on complex issues such as social inequality, drug trafficking, and the current crisis facing Indigenous defenders. 

We entered other dimensions with director Rodo Arrascue, who guided us into the world of Shipibo-Konibo artist Olinda Silvano through an immersive experience of Kene Connections virtual reality. 

In May, we inaugurated two new exhibitions centered around Matsigenka storytelling and traditional designs, inviting members of the Shipetiari community to share their experiences around this co-creative project, which took place over the course of a few years. In Sala 2, we showed the community mural project led by artist and Xapiri Ground member Davis Torres. While in the soundroom, a multi-layered landscape by our creative director and artist Melanie Dizon guided us into the forest of the “Terira Ineenkani” or “the unseen ones.” 

In July, Inigo Maneiro shared his studies on Awajún ethno-ornithology and his debate on nature, culture, and the relationships between birds and humans. While further up in the northern Amazon, we had our first visit to the Bora community of Pucaurquillo to learn about their history and culture, and how that continues to shape their reality today. 

In the latter part of the year, we hosted a couple of provocative talks with anthropologist Donaldo Pinedo, inspired by his field experience of more than 15 years living alongside the Harakbut, Matsigenka, and Yora-Nahua peoples. Using cartographic sources and images, architect and investigator Moisés Porras presented to us his investigations of the relationship between the water systems of Iquitos to ancestral memory, territory, and local economy through a presentation and creative workshop in collaboration with anthropologist Wendy Mozombite. 

We also had the opportunity to go upstream with the Upper Amazon Conservation team to get to know the communities inside the Yurua district for the development of art and cultural relations. As well as revisits to our friends and colleagues in Pucallpa and Masisea to share some fun moments.

Between October and November, we inaugurated the completion of a month-long co-creative project between the USKO-AYAR School, Xapiri Ground, and the local Indigenous community of Pucallpa, celebrating 70 years of the Neo-Amazonico painting style of the master Pablo Amaringo. While in Cusco, we hosted a special post-screening reception for the film Ino Moxo by director Rodo Arrascue.

We debuted a special exhibition of Iskonawa ceramics by the women of the Pari Awin Artisans Association, along with guests from the community, to share their creative process behind the various workshops supported by Xapiri Ground and the revival of an ancestral tradition. 

In the soundroom, we celebrated four years of the Crafting the Field series through a commemorative mix featuring the works of 11 artists. At the inauguration night, we held a live performance of the mix and a roundtable discussion on the creative process and perspectives of the guest artists. This mix will be especially featured throughout most of 2026. 

We concluded the year with a presentation about the Camino Verde forest regeneration project with founder Robin Van Loon and reforestation coordinator Percy Leva. And like a tree made of water, we traveled through the Amazonian chronicles of journalist Joseph Zárate. 

Moments shared in Cusco and in the Amazon are magical, and we do our best to document these experiences with audiovisual material and in-depth publications. These archives live on our growing website, and so we encourage you to explore these materials and share these paths of knowledge. We would also love to hear from you, be it feedback, new ideas, or critiques. 

Thank you to all the communities we work with, our supporters, friends, and colleagues around the world. We wish you health, happiness, and peace for the new year!

To show your support for our organization and its projects, we welcome your one-time or monthly donation to Xapiri Ground.

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