Amazonian Calendars: Indigenous Data Visualizations

Amazonian Calendars: Indigenous Data Visualizations centers Indigenous ways of knowing in the field of data visualization through a collaboration between MIT and Quechua communities in the Peruvian Amazon. Led by Catherine D’Ignazio and Claudia Tomateo, a Quechua Chanka PhD student, the project works with PRATEC, a nonprofit that has facilitated the creation of community calendars for over 35 years.

These large-scale calendars visualize ancestral activities, regenerate biocultural diversity, and communicate knowledge through artistic depictions of humans, animals, water, and forests. Each calendar uniquely represents Quechua Amazonian worldviews—what the collaborators call “cosmo-visualizations” that embody cross-cultural and generational expressions of worldmaking.

Using Indigenous methodologies grounded in the principles of respect, reciprocity, relevance, and responsibility, the team will co-design an exhibition featuring these calendars alongside the Information+ 2025 Conference at MIT. Girvan Tuanama Fasabi, a Quechua visualizer, will travel to Cambridge to present the work and engage in dialogue with data visualization practitioners about expanding the field beyond Western-centric aesthetic practices.

The project emphasizes orality as a foundation for artistic expression and creates space for calendars to be explained from the communities’ own perspectives, amplifying Indigenous voices in conversations about data, design, and knowledge representation.

Project Lead and Advisor Catherine D’Ignazio is the director of the Data + Feminism Lab and an associate professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT. She is interested in creative ways to democratize data science, AI, and technology for social justice.

Biography: Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Website: kanarinka.com
Social:  Instagram | | Bluesky | LinkedIn

Principal Curator and Designer Claudia Tomateo is a PhD student in Urban Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT. Tomateo is a detribalized Indigenous woman descendant of the Quechua Chanka people. She is an architect, urban designer, activist, and educator studying Indigenous data visualization as a tool for collective liberation and the design of Indigenous futures. Grounded in Indigenous methodologies, she hopes to contribute to the dismantling of hegemonic, patriarchal, and extractive academic structures.

Biography: MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Website: claudiatomateo.com
Social: Instagram

Community Advisor Grimaldo Rengifo Vásquez (Tocache, San Martín, Peru) is an educator, writer, consultant, and researcher in intercultural education. He co-founded the Proyecto Andino de Tecnologías Campesinas (PRATEC) in Lima in 1988 and later co-founded Waman Wasi in 2002, a nonprofit organization based in Lamas, San Martín, dedicated to cultural affirmation projects in Andean-Amazonian communities. His work has centered on teacher training, supporting farming families, and fostering intercultural dialogue. From 2020 to 2023, he served as a member of Peru’s National Council of Education. 

Visiting Artist/Indigenous Visualizer Girvan Tuanama Fasabi is a Quechua knowledge keeper and steward of Indigenous ecological wisdom from the Peruvian Amazon. Since 2015 he has served as Coordinator of Community Education with the non-profit Waman Wasi, where he leads the development of biocultural calendars—large-scale visualizations of ancestral activities that act as teaching tools and vehicles for regenerating biocultural diversity. Tuanama was raised in traditions of agrobiodiversity and ecological stewardship, and has trained teams of community facilitators across 22 Andean-Amazonian communities. He will join the exhibition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as lead facilitator in the creation of biocultural calendars.

Audiovisual Producer Jasmin Ramirez is a Quechua filmmaker and photographer from Huancayo, Peru, shaped by the mountains and snow-capped peaks that frame her vision. From the Andes, she learned that every person and every landscape holds a story that needs to be told. With over six years of experience, she works with international organizations to share stories on human rights, sustainability, and environmental conservation. Founder of YLLAFilm, a film and audiovisual production company, guided by the motto: “La realidad la tejemos juntxs.”

Website: yllafilm.com
Social: Instagram

Exhibition Fabricator Sofía Chiappero is a designer and strategist exploring how design and technology can shape more thoughtful human experiences. Her work bridges physical and digital environments, creating systems, experiences, and tools that help people connect, reflect, and act with intention.

Assistant Designer Hai Yi Blue Chan recently completed her BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is now pursuing a Master of Architecture at MIT. She aim to create work that modulates the past with new understandings of current needs.

Partner Institutions:

The Andean Project for Peasant Technologies (PRATEC) is an institution with more than 36 years of experience dedicated to the revitalization of ancestral knowledge, the nurturing of biodiversity, and the promotion of intercultural education for Buen Vivir. It works alongside Andean and Amazonian communities, as well as rural and Indigenous organizations, teachers, and youth, in the recovery of traditional technologies, climate change adaptation, and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge.

Recognized as a Meritorious Personality of Culture by the Ministry of Culture (2016) and honored by UNESCO (2020), PRATEC strengthens the cultural and biological identity of Peru through projects that integrate family agriculture, water and climate change, intercultural healing, ecological rights, and community education.

Website: pratec.org

Waman Wasi is a Peruvian NGO that works with Indigenous communities in the San Martín and Loreto regions to preserve their cultural heritage and promote food security. It focuses on strengthening the cultural identity and traditional knowledge of Amazonian and Andean peoples.

Through educational, environmental, and productive projects, it seeks to protect biodiversity and foster intercultural education.

The organization collaborates with the government and local actors in the defense of territorial rights and the sustainable management of resources. In addition, its programs engage both youth and elders as leaders in the transmission of ancestral knowledge.

Website: wamanwasi.com