tekiointer@gmx.net
The word “Tekio” is an indigenous (zapotek) concept from southern Mexico which means: collective work for the benefit of everybody. Such a concept, ensambled with that of “interculturallity” or fair intercultural dialogue, give us a good, synthetized grasp of our organization’s vision and goals. Founded in 2006 Tekio Intercultural is a small, growing, interdisciplinary working group of Latin-Americans and Swiss-Latin-Americans, professionals in communication, media production, anthropology and arts. Though the short history of Tekio as an organization itself, the professional individual experiences of its members includes several years and a wide spectrum of projects and activities related to the production of multimedia, the promotion of cultural and ecological awareness, and the reinforcement of intercultural bridges. between europeans and latinamericans. During the last three years, Tekio Intercultural has organized three Indigenous Video Festivals in Bern, Zürich and Luzern (Switzerland), in collaboration with the CLACPI (www.clacpi.org), Incomindios (www.incomindios.ch) and Ojo de Agua (see under). Aside, as part of the wider swiss-latinamerican network Rebelarte, Tekio has participated as co-organizer and individual artists, in the last three anual editions of the "Festival de los Espejos" Mirrors Art Festivals (www.rebelarte.ch). The founder of Tekio Intercultural is an original founder of this Festival and an old collaborator of Ojo de Agua Comunicacion, head organization of the CLACPI.
The Americas’ Coordination for Indigenous Films and Communication (CLACPI cause its name in Spanish) was born in Mexico, in 1985, as a continental network that could bring together regional organizations and networks that worked on indigenous video and radio projects. The original aim to structure this “net of networks” was to share communicational indigenous experiences all throughout the Continent, as well as to organize a first Americas’ Indigenous Film Festival in Mexico. Since then, the multiple organizations and networks included in the CLACPI, have been working on mutual collaborations, exchanges and support onto matters like capacitation, production, and distribution of indigenous films. CLACPI includes nowadays more than 25 independent indigenous organizations and dozens of collaborating individuals (indigenous and non-indigenous) from 15 countries of South, Middle and North Americas, who produce, promote and distribute video and cinema made by, for and because indigenous peoples. This way, we tend to communicate worldwide the wonders, visions, problems, challenges and fights of the nowadays indigenous peoples in the whole American Continent. It has been under these precepts, that the CLACPI has organized eight different International Indigenous Film Festivals in Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and twice in Mexico. In 2004, during the VII CLACPI’s Festival, celebrated in Chilean Mapuche land, the mexican organization Ojo de Agua Comunicacion was named general coordinator of CLACPI. The last CLACPI festival (number nine) took in Bolivia, during the summer of 2008.What it is OJO DE AGUA COMUNICACIÓN
Founded in Oaxaca, Mexico, during 1997 and after a long working process to build up autonomous networks, Ojo de Agua Comunicación (firts named Comunicacion Indigena) became one of the most important networks for the CLACPI due to its role as the main reference point for many indigenous media organizations from all over Mexico, Central America and growingly from the US and Canada. Thru continuous activities related to production, promotion, capacitation and following up of video, radio and internet projects in indigenous regions, Ojo de Agua has motivated the grass rooted appropriation of communication technologies in order to build self expression materials that promote the respect for natural and cultural indigenous rights, as well as to reduce the political and socioeconomic margination suffered by native communities all along the continent. Thanks to these works, a growing number of indigenous individuals, communities and organizations from Mexico and Central America, are already expressing their own voices, visions and realities thru films shown internationally. In 2004, Ojo de Agua was named general coordinator of the CLACPI. The founder of Tekio Intercultural in Switzerland is an old collaborator from Ojo de Agua; from here, the link .
