This exhibition is a journey of more than 300 images from 6 different Waorani communities within Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. WAO MIMO represents more than 50 indigenous photographers and 4 professional photographers from the United States, Spain and Ecuador, in a joint effort to tell the story of the Waorani. The original exhibition design and layout were created by the award-winning Ecuadorian visual artist Belen Mena. Thanks to you, Belen, we have the empowering visual elements and logo to support the photographers’ work.
The work produced by these indigenous photographers is unprecedented material that portrays their lives from an intimate perspective, their daily way of life in the Amazon jungle. Their current challenges consist of balancing their traditions with the introduction of technology and globalization to their communities: environmental conservation with the use of new hunting and fishing tools; the songs of their grandparents with American top hits; and clothes made of tree bark with cotton imports.
Can you imagine how this process has been captured in images? Through its native and western photojournalists, WAO MIMO has turned this idea into a reality. These Waorani communities have shared their story with you.
This exhibition is a journey of more than 300 images from 6 different Waorani communities within Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. WAO MIMO represents more than 50 indigenous photographers and 4 professional photographers from the United States, Spain and Ecuador, in a joint effort to tell the story of the Waorani. The original exhibition design and layout were created by the award-winning Ecuadorian visual artist Belen Mena. Thanks to you, Belen, we have the empowering visual elements and logo to support the photographers’ work.
The work produced by these indigenous photographers is unprecedented material that portrays their lives from an intimate perspective, their daily way of life in the Amazon jungle. Their current challenges consist of balancing their traditions with the introduction of technology and globalization to their communities: environmental conservation with the use of new hunting and fishing tools; the songs of their grandparents with American top hits; and clothes made of tree bark with cotton imports.
Can you imagine how this process has been captured in images? Through its native and western photojournalists, WAO MIMO has turned this idea into a reality. These Waorani communities have shared their story with you.
About the Waorani
The Waroani have called the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon their home and territory for centuries. As nomadic warriors, these jungle dwellers used to protect their land with spears, often inciting bloody, and often fatal, battles with neighboring Kichwa groups. When missionaries and oil companies moved into the region in the mid to late-20th century, the Waorani met the Western world for the first time, and the clash was exceptionally brutal for them. After fighting for decades again the intrusion of both of these outsider groups, these indigenous protectors of the forest were slowly coerced, physically or economically, to accept the inevitable: increasing resource extraction and the accompanying road development to make it possible. Nowadays, the Waorani have established small communities along these oil roads, and many of these communities have, unfortunately, become dependent on the resources provided to them by the government, oil companies, and other outside entities. While they fight to preserve their traditions, they are constatly confronted with new technologies and foreign ideas, unavoidably transforming the way that the next generation will live and learn.
Wao Mimo presents the authentic perspective of those who live in Yasuní since they have documented themselves introspectively. The Waorani photographers prove to us that the forest is much more than green; it is also people practicing their traditional customs and adopting others, showing their authenticity and their daily lives: everyday survival, the daily struggle, play, laughter, nature, a different worldview and cultural exchange. All of this has been documented in order to show us that Yasuní is life, people, children’s laughter, grandparents’ wisdom, and so much more than meets the eye.
About the Communities
The six communities in which we worked with Waorani photographers are each exceptionally unique yet also similar to the others in many ways. Guiyero, Ganketapare, and Timpoka were the first three communities where we began teaching photography. The individuals who collaborated with our project had been working with outsider groups for several decades since both the Yasuní Research Station and a Spanish-owned oil station are located nearby. The other three communities—Dikaro, Bameno, and Boanamo—are much farther from any of the National Park entrances, yet profoundly affected by the oil roads and customs of the Western world, as well.
While the leaders of all six communities strive to protect their culture and land, it was in Boanamo where we witnessed the most traditional way of life and where community members were making a conscious effort to preserve as many cultural customs as possible. Not coincitendally, this community was the only one of the six to rely almost entirely on tourism rather than oil company compensation or work contracts, which offers some provocative food for thought.
As illustrated by the accompanying map, all of the communities with which we worked depend primarily on their surrounding natural resources for survival, especially the rivers that run from the high Andes mountains east to the Amazonian basin. These resources invariably change, so the Waorani are accustomed to constantly adapting, as well. However, some environemntal, political, and economic changes are creating so much pressure on the Waorani that they may not be able to adapt and survive as they have for centuries before.
About the Communities
The six communities in which we worked with Waorani photographers are each exceptionally unique yet also similar to the others in many ways. Guiyero, Ganketapare, and Timpoka were the first three communities where we began teaching photography. The individuals who collaborated with our project had been working with outsider groups for several decades since both the Yasuní Research Station and a Spanish-owned oil station are located nearby. The other three communities—Dikaro, Bameno, and Boanamo—are much farther from any of the National Park entrances, yet profoundly affected by the oil roads and customs of the Western world, as well.
While the leaders of all six communities strive to protect their culture and land, it was in Boanamo where we witnessed the most traditional way of life and where community members were making a conscious effort to preserve as many cultural customs as possible. Not coincitendally, this community was the only one of the six to rely almost entirely on tourism rather than oil company compensation or work contracts, which offers some provocative food for thought.
As illustrated by the accompanying map, all of the communities with which we worked depend primarily on their surrounding natural resources for survival, especially the rivers that run from the high Andes mountains east to the Amazonian basin. These resources invariably change, so the Waorani are accustomed to constantly adapting, as well. However, some environemntal, political, and economic changes are creating so much pressure on the Waorani that they may not be able to adapt and survive as they have for centuries before.
About Yasuni Biosphere Reserve and National Park
Established in 1979, Yasuní National Park has been designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO because of its extraordinary biodiversity. Recently, it has become increasingly impacted by the complexities of Ecuador’s economic dependency on oil extraction and exportation. In 2007, the government proposed the Yasuní-ITT Initiative that would prevent the exploitation of the oil reserves beneath PNY in exchange for globally-funded compensation for 50% of the value of those reserves ($3.6 billion) over a 13-year period. Unfortunately, by summer 2013, the government had only received just over $300 million. Consequently, the initiative was officially ended on August 15, 2013. Efforts to spread global awareness of the importance of biodiversity in this region now fall on conservation-oriented communities living and working in the threatened region, including scientists and indigenous Waorani people.
Scientists based at the Yasuní Research Station have conducted more than 100 research projects with the aim of promoting sustainable management of the National Park. Many of these projects have involved partnering with the area’s Waorani people, who have also served as stewards of the forest through long-practiced sustainable use of the forest. The Waorani value the forest above all else, so their relationship with oil companies in the area has become increasingly complex and contentious. In 1990, the Ecuadorian government created the Waorani Ethnic Reserve, officially recognizing the Waorani people’s authority over 612,560 hectares of forestland, but their ownership rights do not extend to the subsoil where the oil reserves lie.
