Our Amazon Frontline

Curated by Sandra Barclay and Jean Pierre Crousse, Our Amazon Frontline is tucked away on the first floor of the Arsenale Sale d'Armi. Once discovered, the pavilion slowly reveals itself, inviting visitors to traverse a narrow path between suspended, ribbon-like walls adorned with photographs by Musuk Nolte and Amazograms by Roberto Huarcaya. Turning a corner at the end of the path brings visitors to an artistic construct made with chairs suspended from the ceiling; these chairs depict the state of the schools in the Peruvian Amazon. Beneath the chairs are statements that reinforce the inadequate conditions, such as the assertion that it takes 5-1/2 hours (three times the norm than in the rest of the country) for children to commute between home and school in the area.

The third and last section of the exhibition is devoted to solutions: Plan Selva, developed by former and current students of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, under lead architect Elizabeth Añaños. Aimed at building a country of equal opportunities and preserving the Amazon through education, Plan Selva ultimately comprises the construction of hundreds of schools in the region. As explained by curator Jean Pierre Crouse in the video at bottom, instead of building the schools from wood, an important resource in the Amazon, the schools are designed to be built from small steel components. Most importantly, the buildings are designed to be grouped into configurations that define spaces of community – spaces defined by the communities themselves through a participatory process.