For centuries, indigenous peoples and cultures of the world have been depicted and represented by people from the outside.
Recently, however, there has been an effort to provide new communication technology and training to indigenous peoples so they can represent themselves with their own words and images.
Since 1998, The Chiapas Media Project (CMP) has been accomplishing this in Southern Mexico.
A free public lecture and video presentation on CMP from its U.S. coordinator, Aasia Mohammad Castaneda, comes to the Olmsted Auditorium at Penn State Harrisburg Wednesday, March 21 at 7 p.m.
The CMP is an award-winning, bi-national partnership that provides video equipment, computers, and training to enable marginalized indigenous communities in Southern Mexico to depict their peoples and cultures in their own words and images.
Indigenous youth with little formal education, and often working without reliable electricity, have produced videos covering a wide range of topics, including agricultural collectives, fair trade coffee, women’s collectives, autonomous education, traditional healing, and the history of their struggle for land.
The CMP began as a result of conversations with autonomous Zapatista communities requesting access to video and computer technology. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is an indigenous movement which became known to the world via the internet on January 1, 1994 when it staged an armed uprising and took over six town in Chiapas demanding that indigenous rights be recognized in the Mexican constitution. Another demand was the formation of indigenous-controlled TV and radio throughout Mexico.
Since its inception, CMP has provided video and computer equipment and training with an emphasis in video production. This CMP is currently 15 indigenous productions worldwide.
