Emma Goldman often talked about the importance of living the truth, as opposed to just theorizing about it, and about her position toward the forms of organization that can be created by the natural mixture of common interests and voluntary union. According to her: “We could organize the activity of free human beings analogously to the spirit of harmonious solidarity that grows organically producing a variety of colors and shapes as the one that originates in the varied set that we admire in flowers.”[2]

Embracing mediation as a methodology to ignite proactive forms that re-narrate and reinstitute the inherent rights of other beings and etnias (ethnicities) in a place that has historically continued to implement forms of eradication is part of Escuela de Oficios. Through practices that convert processes into action, and then into advocacy, Jorge González’s meditation “is not only a methodology but a way to propose new ways of promoting principles of growth and cultivation rooted in our land and its connection to the vibration of the earth.”[3]

Eight years ago, Jorge González began another story with a community that claimed an other form of knowledge building. I was part of it. Through its ongoing transformative platform of research and practice, Escuela de Oficios taught me to relate with our history again using materials that carry the underlying support structure of learning processes that expose critical issues about our form of production.

Escuela de Oficios has delved into deliberate absences,[4] convened to re-learn artisanal skills, and collaborated with artisans and workshops such as Taller Cabachuelas.[5] It has been an example of training and transformation through experiences of collective learning by nurturing and informing a current generation of artists, artisans, and fellow teachers.

They have also collaborated with the organization Can-Jíbaro Indigenous People’s Organization of Boriken (CAN) to reaffirm their claims and re-narrate a story that can guide new actions toward regional and world alliances, setting forth another way of relating to territories and ethnicities.

From the renegotiations of our cultural objects and their relation to the community, to the reclaiming of ancient approaches to preserving our plant-based species, Escuela de Oficios commits to work hand in hand with CAN and other allied organizations to eradicate oppression by claiming spaces and ways of existing through reaffirming indigenousness as an integral component of our society. It is in these social commitments of denunciation and reaffirmation that Escuela de Oficios and Jorge González’s practice merge and become a collective effort in raising the multiple voices that make up our territory. Weaving information and stories, facilitating communal sharing of cultural belongings, learning and doing through de-schooling (like the ones raised by Ivan Illich) or actions (like the ones proposed by initiatives like Under the Mango Tree).[6] Escuela de Oficios takes on a life of its own in the bodies that participate within it.

Escuela de Oficios is a symbolic and practical space for the recuperation of narratives between the indigenous and the modern, and a fertile terrain for the practices that engage us in actions where we can “walk-together.” I could describe Escuela de Oficios and Jorge’s practice as a “walk-together”[7] through applied exercises and investigations in order to learn differently, hear other voices, and take one another’s steps to keep our bodies in practice and alert—as Urusula K. Le Guin says: “we’ve all let ourselves become part of the killer story, and so we may get finished along with it.”[8]

The ongoing general perception falters, influenced by perverse narrations that continuously enable forms of colonization through processes that eradicate our diversity. When disappearances occur through narratives that continue this pattern of homogenization, it not only creates a void, but voices cease to exist. By embracing forgotten narratives while we learn to live an other way, we might be able to reclaim our rights and restitute historic narratives that have been silenced. As Jorge mentions: “The indigenous population has not disappeared even if the official history narrates another story.” I will jointly add that neither have the skills needed to embrace the conscious use of materials while keeping our forest alive.

The processes that have silenced and discriminated against the indigenous and African populations in Puerto Rico in the name of progress are urgent issues. These processes are literally embedded into the country’s oppressive education system, from the teaching of indigenous extinction to the understanding of ourselves as a homogeneous people, rather than a region of great biodiversity and of multiple expressions of its peoples. Through alternative critical pedagogies, we can proceed differently and act with the urgency needed to heal our earth, so that we can heal together.

The verb narrare in Latin (to tell) which is derived from the adjective gnarls (knowing or skilled) is a good reference for methodologies that our ancestors have used to guide and express the communal identity and values of our population. Maybe we have forgotten how to listen, or maybe we have misused the practice of the skilled or the narrator: the one who knows that it is not the power of the person who mediates but the harmonious generosity of transmission that gives agency to the narration. Like Mireia Sallares, a voice that contributed to the project, said: “I believe in narration as a possibility to survive death, prohibitions or regulations, or at least a tool to use so that they do not impose the narration on you.”

I believe Escuela de Oficios, along with Jorge González’s practice at large, is an example of how we should embrace and act toward the present future. These forms extend their relations and commitments beyond their field, to organically add and participate with the layering of the understory. This, in turn, can reinstitute that other narration to implement the changes we need so that the other story can be embodied with reassurance and belonging, without faltering in our self-determination to re-negotiate our modernity.

Michelle Marxuach lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is the co-director and co-founder of Beta-Local. Her practice is born out of an interest to enhance the creative field and encourage interdisciplinary practices that rethink and redesign their own forms and structures to articulate answers and invent solutions to current issues. She believes that creative, aesthetic thinking is essential for healthy social change. From 2005–07 Marxuach took a sabbatical from the field of contemporary art to engage in the restoration and design of a historic structure in Old San Juan, which is now home to the Beta-Local program. From 1999–2004, Marxuach founded and directed the art space, M & M projects, an alternative nonprofit space dedicated to strengthening the production of contemporary art in Puerto Rico and its promotion internationally. As part of the space, she created a workshop for local residents and international artists. Marxuach organized exhibitions at the Fundación Joan Miró, Barcelona; Ex Teresa, Mexico; Museum of Modern Art of Sto. Domingo; and the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico, among others. Her curatorial practice established a forum for dialogue and camaraderie among artists, where projects were discussed and potentiated beyond traditional exhibition spaces.