The goal at the Proyecto Kazá collective—kazá means “memory” in the Uza language, also known as Chichimeca Jonaz—is researching, recuperating and spreading regional knowledge for incorporation into children’s education by means of workshops and artistic strategies. At center lies promoting affective care of the environment by using feelings and imagination. The collective collaborates with public elementary schools and invites regional figures to share knowledge that community teachers have in terms of issues like ecology, territory, memory and linguistic diversity. Since 2015, Proyecto Kazá has worked in different locations in Guanajuato’s Sierra Gorda mountains and at the beginning of 2019 it set up its headquarters at the Escuela Primaria Miguel Hidalgo in the town Misión de Arnedo in the Victoria municipal jurisdiction. Amauta García and Daniel Godínez-Nivón are charged with the project’s general coordination.

Kazá memoria de agua, 2021
9 min.

This film documents water stories from the Sierra Gorda region of Guanajuato and a performance people carry out to try to get this liquid to return and seep back into Misión de Arnedo’s land and language.

Kazá memoria de cerro, 2021
11 min.

This film highlights the Ezar people’s close relationship with the land they inhabit: a relationship reflected in the language and made evident by the importance of language as the primary means of perceiving and naming the world.