Episode 4 - Wind-People and the Songs that Preserve Peatlands with Ariel Bustamante

In this episode our guest is Ariel Bustamante, self-taught sound artist from Chile. We talk about his collaborations with the Selk’nam people in Karukinka, Tierra del Fuego, and the Uru-Chipayan nation living between the North of Chile and Bolivia. We hear about the cosmologies and practices of these people, especially the practice of singing to peatlands. This relationship of mutual care between the Selk’nam people and the peatlands was presented in the trans-disciplinary project “Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol” at the Venice Biennale in the Chilean Pavilion in 2022. Ariel also shares with us his experience of living alone in the Atacama desert, walking with "wind-persons” and what the spiritual powers of nature can teach us humans. Finally, we discuss the dangers of generalizing Indigenous nations and knowledge systems as well as the relevance and colonial history of anthropology and ethnography.  This podcast is brought to you by Dr. Aouefa Amoussouvi and 99 Questions at Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss. For more information, show notes and the podcast transcript, visit https://www.humboldtforum.org/en/programm/digitales-angebot/digital-en/decolonial-ecologies-76021/ . Image © Elia Diane Fushi Bekene, selflovetribute.com / Background Image: Sasha Engelmann & Sophie Dyer, "Image transmitted by satellite NOAA-19".