Digital Display: Sacred Plants of the Muysca – In the Words and Photos of Community Members

Sacred plants are woven into the fabric of the everyday lives of Indigenous peoples. This exhibit explores the profound connection between the Muysca community of Suba in Bogotá, Colombia, their sacred territory, and their plant medicine knowledge systems. Emerging from years of participatory-based collaboration, this photovoice exhibit features photographs taken by both the researcher and community members, offering an intimate and relational perspective on the cultural practices connected to these sacred plants. Among the plants featured are tobacco, brugmansia, and coca—each integral to the community's spiritual and healing traditions. Through the eyes of the Muysca people, who have undergone displacement and witnessed the concretization of their territory, these photographs reveal how the use of sacred plants is an embodied political practice integral to their defense of territorial sovereignty as well as their Indigenous revitalization process. These visual narratives highlight not only the vibrancy and fortitude of the Muysca people, but also their struggles as an urban Indigenous community without recognized land rights as they work to protect their heritage and heal through plant medicine within a rapidly growing and desacralized cityscape. Weaving together themes of healing and cultural survival, the exhibit provides a powerful visual narrative of the Muysca’s resilient spirit in preserving their traditions and defending their ancestral land.  

Paola Andrea Sánchez-Castañeda is a cultural anthropologist working in the fields of critical Indigenous studies and urban environmental thought, with a focus on Latin America. For over eight years, she has walked alongside the Muysca of Suba—an urban Indigenous community in Bogotá, Colombia—collaborating on research that explores the deep entanglements between indigeneity, territory, nature, and the sacred. 

Blending ethnography with visual storytelling, Andrea employs visual methodologies as both a research tool and a means visualizing the community’s lived struggles, sacred practices, and cosmologies. Her work opens space for seeing and sensing Indigenous presence in urban space. 

Andrea earned her PhD in Anthropology and her MA in Religious Studies from Florida International University. During her postdoctoral fellowship at CSWR, she has continued her collaboration with the Muysca, documenting the ceremonial use of sacred plant medicines and their vital role in Indigenous revitalization and territorial defense in the city of Bogotá.  

Nicolle Torres 

Indigenous Muysca woman from the territory of Suba, with a degree in Spanish and Languages from the National Pedagogical University of Colombia. She has specialized training in the Muysca language (from the Caro and Cuervo Institute) and political education for Indigenous women (from Universidad del Rosario). She is currently a master’s candidate in Linguistics at the National University of Colombia. 

Her work has focused on cultural management, the teaching and revitalization of the Muysca language, as well as research and activism related to Indigenous education, oral traditions, Indigenous poetry, and traditional Muysca music. She has led pedagogical and community processes in various territories of the Association of Muysca Indigenous Councils, with a particular emphasis on teaching the native Muysca language. 

She has extensive experience in Indigenous education, ethno-education, and linguistic documentation, actively participating in research groups at public universities in Colombia. She currently works as an ethnic specialist for the Bogotá District Network of Public Libraries (BibloRed) and as a Muysca language instructor in the Department of Linguistics at the National University of Colombia. 

Camila Yopasá  

Indigenous Muysca woman from the ancestral territory of Suba, belonging to the Yopasa Niviayo clan. She is a graphic designer who graduated from Universidad Santo Tomás, with solid experience in community communication, design with an intercultural approach, and the revitalization of ancestral knowledge. Her work has been deeply linked to processes of identity strengthening through visual culture, photography, audiovisual media, and Indigenous education. 

She has worked with the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), supporting communication processes led by Indigenous youth, and is currently part of the team at the National Commission of Indigenous Territories (CNTI), where she contributes to the defense of the territorial and cultural rights of Indigenous peoples in Colombia. 

She is an authority within the Muysca Indigenous Council of Suba and has led community projects focused on Indigenous communication, the revitalization of the Muysca language, and cultural memory. Her work has been recognized both nationally and internationally, having won second place in the 2024 photography contest organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and she has been invited to speak at high-level events such as the Symposium on the Repatriation of Indigenous Heritage organized by Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Latin American Design Meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Her political, artistic, and community-driven approach establishes her as a young Indigenous leader with a critical and creative vision, committed to defending territories, promoting self-determined education, Indigenous communication, and the cultural survival of Indigenous peoples. 

Jose Piravaguen 

Jose is a member of the Muysca community of Suba, from the Yopasa Niviayo clan. He is a professional photographer and multimedia producer who has served as one of the leaders of the communication council of the Muisca Cabildo and producer of the first Muisca radio station, Nohosca: Raices Muiscas, Voces de Suba.