Purhení: Pasta de Cana de Maiz

A report about the LADF project: Working with the pasta de cana de maiz technique

Purheni has started in 2002, when 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 started chasing the origins of this image and ended up that day in the little village of TzinTzunTzan, Mexico.

There they found the first people that still knew about the technqie, leading to other traces in villages around TzinTzunTzan, slowly revealing parts of the technique and its different interpretations by different groups of craftsmen. What became clear is that this technique had to be preserved, because of its incredible story and its roots in Mexican culture.

LADF decided to set up a project. It had to re-value indigenous knowledge of “renewable resources for material purposes” and put this into practice. The knowledge concerns the “Pasta de Caña de Maiz technique” (technique with maize stover paste). The main goal of the project is to discover and describe how the ancient "pasta de caña de maiz technique" can be reused and re-integrated in the production of maize goods as a new handcrafted and/or industrialized product that will contribute to fulfill the elementary needs of the community in which the technique is applied. We decided our knowledge of design to (help local people) create new products that will keep the technique alive and create work for people in Michoacan, Mexico.

Project description

In Mexico, the use of the maize plant is inseparable from the country’s history. Throughout centuries, every part of the plant has had a designated use, either for food, energy or material purposes. Nowadays, only some parts of the plant are used for consumption. The stover (caña) is mostly left unused other than feeding cows. This is a waste of energy and creates opportunities to improve the potential of the agricultural sources of the region.

LADF wants to contribute with the local community to re-integrate the ‘Caña de Maiz’-technique to improve this. The project’s first phase will research the possibilities to use the resulting material to create new crafted and/or industrialized products. The result of this phase is the possibility to process the now unused part of the harvested maize plant into handcrafted or industrialized products that bring new sources of income to local communities by creating sustainable micro-industries that take social effects into account.

The next phase of the project is to study the possibilities of creating the application of the material and products and the technological development needed for their production. Development of the commercial potential of the products is the main focus in this phase. This will result in the design of a line of ‘Caña de Maiz’-products that become the fundament of a SME (small medium-sized enterprise) organized by the people in the region, which will produce and commercialize the products.

Background of the technique

Maize grain and plant (corn) has always been one of the main nutritional sources in Mexico and other countries of Central America. In the region of Michoacan (Mexico), before the Spanish conquest, the Purepecha Indians used to prepare a paste with the maize stem. This was to make images of their Gods in a ritual after the maize harvest. The resulting sculptures were strong, but yet so light that it allowed them to be carried on the backs of the Indians, the Indians during their battles with other local cultures.

When the Spanish conquered this region of Mexico, the strongest symbol of their conquest was that the Indians used this same technique to make sacred images of the Catholic Religion: the images of the God of the conquistadores. After this, the area became one of the main producers of sacred images.

Unfortunately, the ‘pasta de caña de maiz ’-technique almost disappeared during the war of the Cristeros, in which most of the workshops were burned, and later again, because of the introduction of new technologies and industrialized cheaper materials. Now, there are only a few counted people that still know the technique and keep on making these religious images by demand.

In March 2006, LADF organized a trip to Mexico to set up an employment project for women in Michoacan. Dutch designers Vera Winthagen en Liesbeth Fit were invited to share their knowledge and energy, and together with LADF, a cooperation with a group of women in the surroundings of Patzcuaro has been set up, leading to more activities this year. The group of women tries to produce products with market attraction, while keeping their identity. In September 2006, with the kind support of the Mexican Embassy in the Netherlands, a fund raising dinner is organized, leading to attention and - hopefully – more funding to continue this project further. You can also contribute and donate funds to keep this project going on.

LADF - in cooperation with all groups of artisans - will focus this project in developing products of maize paste that can provide new sources of income to the women of the region, which is needed because they stay alone with their children when their husbands emigrate to the U.S.A., without knowing if they will ever return. LADF will closely cooperate with these local projects, but will focus on the new possibilities that the ‘Caña de Maiz’-technique will bring.

Project resources

Participants in this project will be:

• LADF - will deliver the project manager;
• LADF - organization providing design research and project support;
• Two participants from the ‘Sustainable Agriculture’ organization in Michoacan, who will actively participate in the project and who will introduce the project to the local farmers and artisans;
• A group of local farmers and artisans, who will actively asses the project with their knowledge and experience;
• Two industrial designers in Mexico;
• One dutch designer and researchers on the field of “renewable resources for material purposes”, who will actively asses the project with their knowledge and experience;
• A video director who will document the whole project with video and photography.
• A group of students that do research for the economic model on how to build the small local enterprises (SME’s).

The results

The expected results of this project will be:

• Creation of a material based on the indigenous knowledge of the ‘Caña de maiz’-technique with material qualities measured, studied and improved.
• A line of products based on this material that can be produced in a sustainable way and commercialized by the local communities in Michoacan, Mexico.
• Adding one of the ‘missing links’ to the complete use of the maize plant as the source that contributes to fulfill the elementary needs of a community.
• Based on the success of the designed materials and/or products, start the second phase of the project which would be the start up of an SME (small and medium sized enterprise) that will produce the products in the community. The model for this is explored during the first phase.
• Prepare the spread of this knowledge to other communities and countries where maize is grown and where this technique can also be developed. The spread of knowledge will be done through a foundation that exploits the knowledge to the benefit of the community.

During the research phase, the social and environmental impact of the project in the local communities will be evaluated during and after the development of the project.