
Weaving Realities
Toj Óolal - A Game of Relational Thinking
In collaboration worked on the visual design of the game with Weaving realities Collective with Lyra Liyuchen, Aldoe Ramos and Suumil Móokt': Valiana Aguilar aan Colectivo At Casco Art Institute, Utrecht to the exhibition of travelling farmmuseum.
As expressed by Weaving Realities hereby their description of the game:
Toj Óolal is a Mayan concept, which means, to be a healthy person is to stand well in a healthy land in relationality. A person cannot live without the community. A farm cannot exist without the soil, the river, the insects nor the relations that build up this farming practice. Listening to and learning from Mayan communities who are living in close relation with land and are practicing ancestral knowledges, help us weave back the relationality that has been disrupted in this context of gentrified farmland in Utrecht Leidsche Rijn.
How to preserve farmland beyond the historical buildings by re-membering the relations with land as Earth knowledges and skills? Weaving Realiteit propose the Toj Óolal game to root our thinking in relationality among all the inseparable elements, by igniting conversation on how to sustain life a living territory. In this game, instead of competing against each other, all players work together to reach a common goal. And instead of farming to harvest the crops into commodities, our goal is to celebrate life by taking care of all relations. In inspiration by the great Zappatista board game.
Pictures by Nonzuzo Gxekwa