Purhení: Pasta de Cana de Maiz

Working with the pasta de cana de maiz technique; an overview

 

This is the overview page for our project on the pasta de cana de maiz (corn stem paste). This great LADF-project, called Purheni, has been going on since 2002, since Gabriela Bustamante en Jose Jeroen Nas found an old image of Christ in a musuem in Morelia, Michoacan which was produced from pasta de cana de maiz. They decided to start looking for its roots and ended up in an adventure about Mexican cultural traditions, unemployed woman, groups of craftsmen and maiz. A lot of maiz.

From this page, you can read about the different stages of the project, look at pictures and videos and react to LADF if you want to help or add something to this project.

Here you can navigate through all different aspects of the project:

Events and report:

What happened? Here's an illustrated report of the different activities in this project.
Video's: As soon as we can, we will place video's here as well.
Objective:

This ancient technique from the Purhepecha Indians, originating in Michoacan, Mexico, and converted by the Spanish into a technique to make images of Christ in the 17 th century, almost disappeared. Some groups of craftsmen are reviving it and LADF supports this, generating interest, knowledge and opening up channels for those who want to use it for something good. This is creating economic sustainability in dying villages in Michoacan, where illegal immigration to the USA has proved its destructive effects on the communities.
Who made this possible?

This project so far is funded by LADF, Vera Winthagen and Liesbeth Fit with kind support and assistence of Casa de Artesanias de Michoacán, Universidad Latina de America, Morelia, the Grupo de Artesanos ‘Donde Florece la Cultura A.C.’, Organización GIRA (Grupo Interdisciplinar de tecnología Rural Aplicada), Grupo de artesanos de pasta de Caña de Maiz Tzatzingueni, Pedro Coto Nieto, artista y fundador de la asociación ‘Donde Florece la Cultura. A.C.’, Agustin Gaspar y Beatriz Ortega, Artisans, Springtime Industrial Design, Hans van Weenen, director de IDEA International Design and Environment Activities, Oene Dolstra, expert in maiz, University of Wageningen, Paul Eilbracht, diseñador y experto en diseño de producto sustentable.

And finally, the LADF board worked on this project for almost 5 years now and has spend a lot of time and money in it. But we asked for it....