Latest / New Worlder / Episode #99: Alejandro Osses

Transcript

Episode #99: Alejandro Osses · New Worlder

0:00
SPEAKER_00: This is the New Worlder podcast and I am one of your hosts, Nicholas Gill.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Today we are speaking with Alejandro Olses.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: Alejandro is a food photographer from Bogota, Colombia, who recently relocated to Madrid, Spain.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: He recently published a book of his work documenting food in Colombia over the past decade.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: It's called De Cero a Cuatro Mil Ocho Cientos.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: It's printed with Colombian publisher Hombre de Cultura.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: Alejandro is a great photographer.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: He focuses on the human element behind the food as much as he does about the art of cooking.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: The book takes you all over Colombia,
0:44
SPEAKER_00: from the high-altitude wetlands and urban areas to Afro-Caribbean communities on
0:49
SPEAKER_00: the Pacific coast to indigenous outposts on the Amazon.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Alejandro is also involved in a lot of other projects,
0:57
SPEAKER_00: often alongside his wife,
0:59
SPEAKER_00: a great food writer named Carmen Posada.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: Together, they have helped create Futuro Coca, a conference about the coca plant.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: They've also created Mucho Colombia,
1:11
SPEAKER_00: a distribution model for heritage Colombian ingredients from rural and indigenous producers,
1:17
SPEAKER_00: and Migrant Food Systems,
1:19
SPEAKER_00: which he is developing in Spain.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: So, we recorded this episode before the election, so we don't discuss it directly.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: All I'll say about it now is that
1:31
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on in the world right now to try and make sense of.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: I struggle with it all the time.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: There aren't always easy answers or changes that happen overnight.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: No matter how it seems, we all just have to do our part to try and make the world better.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: It might feel easier sometimes if you have a government or leader of any sort that
1:54
SPEAKER_00: agrees with you or just at the very least isn't a complete douchebag,
2:01
SPEAKER_00: but it's always a challenge.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: So keep fighting to make your voice heard and do it with love, kindness, and understanding.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: That should never change.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't subscribed to the newsletter,
2:16
SPEAKER_00: just go to newworlder.com or search for New Worlder on Substack.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: It's free to subscribe.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Also look for my books, such as the Latin American Cookbook, at bookstores or online.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: There are links to them in the newsletter as well.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Also, check out the New Worlder YouTube channel.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Just go to youtube.com slash newworlder.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the show.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Hey Alejandro, how are you?
3:24
SPEAKER_02: Hey Nick, Juliana, how are you?
3:27
SPEAKER_03: Hi, how are you?
3:29
SPEAKER_02: Good, good.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me here.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: So are you back in Spain right now?
3:34
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I'm in Spain.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: I came up just this weekend from Colombia.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you've been going back and forth quite a bit lately, right?
3:42
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm working right now in Colombia a lot and in Latin America.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: I have a project this month coming up in Yucatan,
3:50
SPEAKER_02: Mexico as well,
3:51
SPEAKER_02: filming traditional cooks there and at the Amazon of Colombia as well.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: So I have to go.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: And Futuro Coke as well, that is my other project.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm working on that on 23rd of November.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: It's going to be the festival in Medellín.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's in Medellín this year.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's in Medellín this year, yes.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and in what day again?
4:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: 2023 of November.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's coming up.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: So how is this year of Futuro Coca different?
4:22
SPEAKER_02: It's going to be, we are talking more about the relation of human and nature.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: It's not about cocaine or the coca plant.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: It's more about how is the relation between
4:35
SPEAKER_02: For you Colombian or for you in other countries,
4:38
SPEAKER_02: the relationship with the plant and with the nature as well.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's going to be more deeply spiritual a little bit.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: But of course, we are talking about the economics and specific things of laws, international laws.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: Bolivia is going to be here as well.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: Mexico, Peru.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: So it's getting bigger about how the Andeans...
5:03
SPEAKER_02: Indians, yeah.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: People, the Andes as well, the people of the Andes are talking about this from all over the world.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: So it's getting interesting.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Julie, maybe you can answer this too, but what is the current...
5:22
SPEAKER_00: perception of coca in in colombia and in cities like bogota and medellin is it
5:28
SPEAKER_00: still stigmatized or are people do people accept you know that's cultural and
5:35
SPEAKER_03: culinary value yeah i was about to to ask alejo something related to that and it's
5:43
SPEAKER_03: uh i think it has changed a bit but i think i mean
5:49
SPEAKER_03: you know,
5:50
SPEAKER_03: with the peace process and the signature of the peace deal and all the work that
5:55
SPEAKER_03: has been done in terms of,
5:57
SPEAKER_03: you know,
5:58
SPEAKER_03: just working on a different perspective on the conflict.
6:03
SPEAKER_03: I think it helps to change the ideas people have about coca and obviously the
6:09
SPEAKER_03: medicinal use of weed,
6:11
SPEAKER_03: of marijuana helps with that too.
6:14
SPEAKER_03: because it's the path for other stigmatized plants.
6:21
SPEAKER_03: But I keep thinking that the challenge is to reach audiences that are far away from
6:29
SPEAKER_03: these more educative or academic environments.
6:36
SPEAKER_03: And I was going to ask Alejo about this.
6:38
SPEAKER_03: In the first event in Bogota with Futuro Coca,
6:44
SPEAKER_03: Um,
6:45
SPEAKER_03: if they have some idea of the,
6:48
SPEAKER_03: the kind of audience,
6:50
SPEAKER_03: because there is an audience and this happens with every niche project,
6:54
SPEAKER_03: I think.
6:56
SPEAKER_03: Um, the challenge is to get to other people that are not familiarized at all.
7:01
SPEAKER_03: They don't even know what that means.
7:03
SPEAKER_03: So I was going to ask Alejo about that.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: If they have a sense of the audience that visited the event.
7:12
SPEAKER_03: And how are they going to approach that in the next version of the event?
7:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, it's really interesting how a different demographic people went to the festival.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: We had like a few exercise for the...
7:30
SPEAKER_02: civil interaction,
7:32
SPEAKER_02: so a lot of people from different communities,
7:35
SPEAKER_02: indigenous,
7:36
SPEAKER_02: like 18 different indigenous communities from Colombia went to the festival,
7:40
SPEAKER_02: invited,
7:41
SPEAKER_02: and also visited the festival as well.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: And in a few neighborhoods really far away from the neighborhood that we did,
7:52
SPEAKER_02: they have like a really big one,
7:55
SPEAKER_02: and it was like a
7:59
SPEAKER_02: They have like a lot of problems with drugs.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: They went like a lot of people from Suwa, Kennedy, that is really far from the festival.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: So the message, it was not about the hipster thing or the new trendy topic because it can be as well.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: Also in food as well, it's like a really niche or target really small.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: But the people in the high society that never touched a plant or never know more
8:31
SPEAKER_02: than cocaine went and there was,
8:34
SPEAKER_02: wow,
8:34
SPEAKER_02: okay,
8:35
SPEAKER_02: it's a different view.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: There's a new narrative that we are talking about.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: This is interesting.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: Thanks,
8:40
SPEAKER_02: because I didn't know how important or how means to the indigenous people,
8:45
SPEAKER_02: to the ancestral culture,
8:46
SPEAKER_02: but only for environment,
8:47
SPEAKER_02: the environment of sustainability around it.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: And it was,
8:53
SPEAKER_02: we have like a really specific exercise with Anisidata,
8:57
SPEAKER_02: who is a company who is making about,
9:01
SPEAKER_02: they make like a different exercise,
9:06
SPEAKER_02: putting some points or making draws or something about exactly the questions that
9:11
SPEAKER_02: are
9:12
SPEAKER_02: we want to hear.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: And the Ministry of Justice sponsored this because they want to hear more about
9:20
SPEAKER_02: other people,
9:20
SPEAKER_02: not only the people that we know about the coke.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Has there been much change in cocoa being used as a culinary item, like as a flavor?
9:34
SPEAKER_00: I've seen some chefs in Bogota using it as... I think...
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Alvaro Clevijo from El Chato had something with Mambe the other day.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: No, actually, there's a lot of chefs like Alejandro Salvo Patria, Leonor Espinosa.
9:55
SPEAKER_02: She was cooking with Mambe as well.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: Mesa Franca.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I think all of the 50 best or this kind of projects, but also came up like the bakery.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: the bakery people in Medellin and in Bogota started to use it because I think for culinary,
10:19
SPEAKER_02: it's more like a spicy,
10:22
SPEAKER_02: a spice,
10:23
SPEAKER_02: or more like ingredient,
10:24
SPEAKER_02: not for replace the flour or something like that,
10:28
SPEAKER_02: but in bakery and the sweet things,
10:30
SPEAKER_02: like it's really...
10:32
SPEAKER_02: interesting that how they are using it so a lot of people in not only the best
10:39
SPEAKER_02: chefs or the high they are using it and and that's good because it's
10:45
SPEAKER_02: Because if we want to change the narrative, the product has to be democratic.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it has to be more democratic.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: It can't just be like a few high end chefs sprinkling a little powder here.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: But it's helping a lot.
11:01
SPEAKER_02: The thing that Virgilio is doing in Peru and the tourism in Peru and Bolivia.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people who wonder, oh, yes, is it a coca leaf that we chew?
11:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's the same.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: And in Colombia, Colombia is not, the plant is not cocaine.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: It's the same plant that you went to Machu Picchu or to Cusco and you eat it.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: So the tourism and the people who are mixed with food and tourism are really like
11:27
SPEAKER_02: take the message a little bit step by step,
11:29
SPEAKER_02: I think.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: Coca is legal, right, in Colombia?
11:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: Coca is legal in Colombia, but only you can plant 21 plants in your home or for the indigenous people.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: And only indigenous people can get money for the coca plant.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: In Peru and Bolivia, it's different.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: Everybody can use it.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there is any rule whatsoever.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: No.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: Actually, the most, the government pay, in Peru, the government buy all the coca that they are producing.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: And they sell them, the much part of the produce, they sell it to Coca-Cola as well.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they probably sell it to... Yeah, let's not go there.
12:20
SPEAKER_03: yeah yeah yeah but but but i was wondering in terms of um so i was thinking as you
12:29
SPEAKER_03: said i think the case of peru and bolivia helped for people to understand that you
12:34
SPEAKER_03: know in other countries this is used in this way it's not a different you know it's
12:39
SPEAKER_03: not that our coca leaf is different it's just the uses and the byproduct of it of
12:45
SPEAKER_03: course but even i was thinking even
12:50
SPEAKER_03: before the gastronomic use of it by chefs, bakers and alike, what about the coca leaf as an infusion?
13:00
SPEAKER_03: Like,
13:00
SPEAKER_03: like,
13:00
SPEAKER_03: you know,
13:00
SPEAKER_03: like they do in Bolivia and Peru and we do in Colombia and it's so good for,
13:05
SPEAKER_03: uh,
13:06
SPEAKER_02: for hike.
13:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: And, and, you know, it's similar to the, the taste is similar to mate.
13:12
SPEAKER_03: So I wonder if, for example, people like the, um,
13:16
SPEAKER_03: the people interested in working on this and the Ministry of Justice approves those kind of uses or not?
13:22
SPEAKER_03: Because I think it seems to be the base, you know, line to get to more people.
13:28
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, we have it in some supermarkets, within BIMA, barcode and everything.
13:34
SPEAKER_03: So have you been in a discussion around those easier uses to start with?
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: Actually, right now there is like a...
13:48
SPEAKER_02: like two sides of the conversation,
13:51
SPEAKER_02: because on one side are the indigenous people who they said like,
13:59
SPEAKER_02: we want to make these infusions,
14:02
SPEAKER_02: but we need to have like the...
14:08
SPEAKER_02: the money,
14:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:10
SPEAKER_02: or recognize that we owned the plant,
14:13
SPEAKER_02: not you or no,
14:14
SPEAKER_02: wherever people come and take the coca leaves and they make products.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: So the Minister of Justice and the law in Colombia are saying that only the
14:25
SPEAKER_02: indigenous peoples can make money with the coca plant.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: If you want to have a business right there, you have to
14:34
SPEAKER_02: take an indigenous people on board of the business as well so there is right now
14:39
SPEAKER_02: the conversation about it because they don't want to happen the same that cannabis
14:46
SPEAKER_02: in colombia that happened a lot so they buy like a lot of exactly so the the
14:54
SPEAKER_02: conversation is there and i think
14:56
SPEAKER_02: It's a really difficult topic because it's a plant,
15:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
15:03
SPEAKER_02: and I don't know,
15:04
SPEAKER_02: it belongs to nature,
15:06
SPEAKER_02: you know,
15:06
SPEAKER_02: it belongs to wild people or wild community because there are like a lot of
15:10
SPEAKER_02: different points of view.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sure.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: It's good that...
15:19
SPEAKER_00: There's debate happening now,
15:21
SPEAKER_00: though,
15:21
SPEAKER_00: that it's not just,
15:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:23
SPEAKER_00: a few food or food geeks or academics that it's,
15:27
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:28
SPEAKER_00: it's reaching new new people because I think I don't know,
15:32
SPEAKER_00: it feels more dynamic now.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: The discussions.
15:36
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: And it's and I think that the people are seeing differently.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: There is like fabrics that I painted with, with coca leaves.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: And you even sell to the markets, to the commercial markets, and they have like teas as well.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: They have one really big industry that the name is Coconaza, who is the first one 20 years ago.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: And they have like cokes, sodas with coca, rum with coke.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: So it's getting more interesting and there is a lot of people that are starting doing it.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's a topic,
16:17
SPEAKER_02: but the main project of the government and northern government of Colombia is Peru,
16:22
SPEAKER_02: Bolivia and Colombia.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: They are writing like a manifesto about how the coca leaf needs to get off the list
16:32
SPEAKER_02: of narcotics in the world.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: So because it's cocaine, morphine, opiates, heroin, and the coca plant as the only plant there.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: So that's stupid.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: So they are getting...
16:50
SPEAKER_02: doing this together that is really nice because it's a union of the people from the
16:54
SPEAKER_02: Andes and and let's see how how it goes but I think this is the first step so they
17:01
SPEAKER_02: went to Vienna and talk about it like come on this is not cocaine please so if they
17:07
SPEAKER_02: happen it's I mean it's not like they've outlawed poppy plants you know exactly the
17:13
SPEAKER_02: poppy seed exactly exactly and you eat cake or yeah
17:18
SPEAKER_00: All right, anyway, changing topics, kind of went off track there.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: But your book,
17:25
SPEAKER_00: your beautiful book that just came out,
17:28
SPEAKER_00: De Cero a Cuatro Mil Ocho Cientos,
17:31
SPEAKER_00: from zero to 4,800 meters.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes, above the sea.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: That's your new photography book, food photography book.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: About your, you know, last 10 years?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 10, 12 years.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: 10, 12 years documenting Colombian cuisine.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And I was trying to think of this earlier,
17:57
SPEAKER_00: but I don't think there's another photo-driven book about Latin American food in
18:02
SPEAKER_00: any form.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Is there?
18:03
SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen it,
18:07
SPEAKER_02: but...
18:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
18:08
SPEAKER_00: there are like some things that are like...
18:11
SPEAKER_00: In Peru,
18:12
SPEAKER_00: I've seen some things that are very photo-heavy,
18:14
SPEAKER_00: but
18:15
SPEAKER_00: but they end up having like half recipes or something, you know, about quinoa or something.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: But I can't think of another just that's more, you know, straight photo.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: It's built around the photos so much.
18:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
18:31
SPEAKER_03: and maybe for people that haven't seen the book,
18:34
SPEAKER_03: Alejo,
18:34
SPEAKER_03: can you tell the audience what the book is about,
18:38
SPEAKER_03: what the main goal of the book is?
18:42
SPEAKER_02: Actually, it's...
18:45
SPEAKER_02: It's more about the culture around the food than the food itself.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: It's about territories, about the...
18:57
SPEAKER_02: The people, what are they doing with food?
18:59
SPEAKER_02: The fishermen,
19:00
SPEAKER_02: the farmers,
19:02
SPEAKER_02: the people with making traditional sweet candies or how they conservative the
19:09
SPEAKER_02: ancestral knowledge about making farinha.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: It's more about like,
19:15
SPEAKER_02: it's more like an anthropological exercise than a food book or a food photography
19:21
SPEAKER_02: book because I can't,
19:24
SPEAKER_02: show the territory the people the the tools that are using it as well so is it's
19:35
SPEAKER_02: about the culture around the food and in different
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Because Colombia, for me, is like all Latin America in one country.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, you have the Afro coast or the Pacific coast, which is almost...
19:57
SPEAKER_02: Descendants from Africa.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: You have the indigenous from the North that are really different than the Amazon.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: You have in the central,
20:05
SPEAKER_02: the middle of the farmers who are so,
20:08
SPEAKER_02: so it's,
20:09
SPEAKER_02: it's like a little Latin America and,
20:12
SPEAKER_02: and,
20:13
SPEAKER_02: and it's about like more regions.
20:15
SPEAKER_02: It's about how in all territories, they, I don't know how do you say officious in English.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: Perhaps.
20:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
20:28
SPEAKER_02: like crafts,
20:29
SPEAKER_02: crafts of the people that are doing in Nolo's aspect and in all the food chain,
20:36
SPEAKER_02: because I don't only show the traditional,
20:39
SPEAKER_02: because also a popular or street food,
20:41
SPEAKER_02: you know,
20:42
SPEAKER_02: making some chicharrón in the Unilago,
20:44
SPEAKER_02: who is in the middle of the center of Bogotá,
20:47
SPEAKER_02: I think.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: And also doing tucupi or farinha in the Amazon, in the jungle.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: So it's, I didn't want to,
20:58
SPEAKER_02: to be like only traditional and only this romantic thing that are happening as well today.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: But Almo is,
21:07
SPEAKER_02: I feel like a connection with the people who are doing it,
21:10
SPEAKER_02: no matter if they have like knowledge or not,
21:14
SPEAKER_02: it's like a craft that they're doing it.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: And also the ingredients and the territory and the people who are making it.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: It's more about, it's like a little...
21:27
SPEAKER_02: homenaje, how do you say it?
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Homage.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: Of the culture around the food and the different types of culture that we have.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Looking over your work in this book and I guess when you were putting it together,
21:44
SPEAKER_00: did you notice any kind of visual patterns?
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Because when I've been fortunate enough to travel around Colombia quite a bit and
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's like the landscapes are so diverse.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like these high altitude mountain ranges, you know, snow-capped mountains.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And you have like lowland Amazon forests and, you know, these big plains.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: And two different coasts, deserts, wetlands.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: And in all of these places, the cuisine is so different.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: It's so, like you said, it's all of Latin America kind of wrapped up into one country.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Is there like a visual thread that kind of connects them all?
22:26
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think it's the rudeness of my view.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: I think my documentary expertise or education is in that.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if...
22:43
SPEAKER_02: a cow dead is is beauty but but it's a part of the moment and it's a part of the
22:49
SPEAKER_02: food chain and it's important to know the that that's happening and that's how you
22:55
SPEAKER_02: can get the beef in the grill you know so i think if you see like almost all the
23:02
SPEAKER_02: the book is
23:04
SPEAKER_02: It's the wrongness and the wrong view that I have and that I want to show.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: I'm not ashamed of that or saying that I eat pork, beef.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: No, it's the reality.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: And we have a country who wants to hide the reality that we have.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: But what we have is to take advantage of that and look in front of the reality and say,
23:31
SPEAKER_02: okay,
23:31
SPEAKER_02: this is my country,
23:32
SPEAKER_02: this is what is happening,
23:33
SPEAKER_02: so I'm going to show the thing that it is.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's beautiful,
23:37
SPEAKER_02: like you say,
23:39
SPEAKER_02: the river that seems like a snake in the Amazon,
23:44
SPEAKER_02: that's the most beautiful thing that I saw,
23:46
SPEAKER_02: but I...
23:48
SPEAKER_02: the killing of a goat with the Miguel Angel as well.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: It was magical and amazing.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: So it's, it's like the rudeness of the, of the view that it's like, you can say is like, uh, uh,
24:02
SPEAKER_02: something that can connect and the topics of high altitudes it's like colombia is
24:10
SPEAKER_02: really special about it i didn't know maybe you can tell me but i don't know other
24:15
SPEAKER_02: countries that have that the versus climates in a couple of minutes away from the
24:22
SPEAKER_00: from different parts yeah i mean it's it's not a lot of countries i don't think i
24:27
SPEAKER_00: think it's just you know
24:29
SPEAKER_00: a little corner of Latin America that has kind of both tropics and,
24:36
SPEAKER_00: and altitude like that,
24:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:37
SPEAKER_00: just Peru,
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Ecuador,
24:38
SPEAKER_00: I guess that's it really like maybe Venezuela a little bit.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
24:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:45
SPEAKER_03: The,
24:46
SPEAKER_03: the,
24:46
SPEAKER_03: there is something I was thinking when you said,
24:51
SPEAKER_03: so,
24:51
SPEAKER_03: so yeah,
24:51
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
24:52
SPEAKER_03: I think that that aesthetic approach,
24:55
SPEAKER_03: you have your,
24:56
SPEAKER_03: your filter because of the,
24:58
SPEAKER_03: the,
24:59
SPEAKER_03: training you have and also the sensitivity you have about around this and
25:03
SPEAKER_03: photography and connecting with the landscape of people.
25:07
SPEAKER_03: So you say, Ronis, do you think for some reason in Colombia, this reality, as you call it,
25:16
SPEAKER_03: tends to be avoided in a different way or more than in other countries from the
25:22
SPEAKER_03: work you have done,
25:23
SPEAKER_03: or this is really happening everywhere and capturing these images and stories is
25:29
SPEAKER_03: something that tends to be idolized,
25:32
SPEAKER_03: beautified,
25:34
SPEAKER_03: commodified.
25:35
SPEAKER_03: Or in Colombia, you have seen something specific about it.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: no i think it's it's almost all over the world here in europe is is the same when i
25:45
SPEAKER_02: when i was working with laika with laika the camera i sent some videos of the some
25:52
SPEAKER_02: footage of the guajira who is the north of colombia the indigenous people of guayu
25:59
SPEAKER_02: and of course there was like a slurring cows and one or not goats more than because
26:05
SPEAKER_02: the culture of go there is so big
26:08
SPEAKER_02: And the editor told me, no, here is more like aesthetic.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, sorry, I'm not going to fit this world.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: So thank you for the camera, but...
26:20
SPEAKER_02: But yes, because I don't want to hide nothing.
26:23
SPEAKER_02: And in Europe, there are a lot of certified stamps of agroforestry.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: They don't want to see kids.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: But in Colombia, in the farms, there are a lot of kids because they have to work.
26:37
SPEAKER_02: So it's like two views of the realities, but almost came from the colonized vision, I think, in some way.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that they also want to hide the reality within...
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Colombia.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Not just Colombia,
26:54
SPEAKER_00: but in most places,
26:55
SPEAKER_00: they want to have the reality of what's happening with food in every country,
27:01
SPEAKER_00: I think.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: Is that why we are so separate about how the food is produced?
27:10
SPEAKER_02: We have like a wall because you don't see how the food... If the people...
27:17
SPEAKER_02: know how the food is produced,
27:20
SPEAKER_02: I think they are not eating the way that we are eating right now,
27:25
SPEAKER_02: like in the world.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: So we,
27:27
SPEAKER_02: as we three know how is the food,
27:31
SPEAKER_02: I think we cannot eat McDonald's all the time,
27:33
SPEAKER_02: you know,
27:34
SPEAKER_02: because we know how it's bad for environment,
27:36
SPEAKER_02: bad for everything.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: So other people doesn't know and it's like because...
27:43
SPEAKER_02: They have like a wall and they don't want to see the reality because it's not a business thing.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: I think there's behind the business that I think is more the thing that they are high in it, maybe.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, I'm not sure restaurants would be a little more open about this too.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Like all these fine dining restaurants that,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: they're basically doing the same thing as McDonald's in a way.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're creating this...
28:11
SPEAKER_00: beautiful aesthetic okay i wouldn't call it mcdonald's hamburger beautiful but i
28:15
SPEAKER_00: just mean like the sanitized version of food that's you know that excludes the
28:24
SPEAKER_00: reality of you know these slaughterhouses and factories and you know the you know
28:30
SPEAKER_00: destruction of environment and whatever but even fine dining restaurants you know
28:36
SPEAKER_00: they're
28:37
SPEAKER_00: they're taking all these beautiful ingredients,
28:39
SPEAKER_00: but they're hiding the reality of,
28:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:43
SPEAKER_00: everything that's coming to them and just presenting them in this,
28:47
SPEAKER_00: in this neat,
28:48
SPEAKER_00: beautiful way without much context,
28:50
SPEAKER_00: really.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: I think there's an opportunity there if somebody wants to maybe make some people uncomfortable.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: And that's opportunity because the chefs right now are the rock stars, you know?
29:04
SPEAKER_02: So they have like a lot of,
29:08
SPEAKER_02: influencer way to talk.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I think chefs, they've been too politically correct lately.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: You know,
29:20
SPEAKER_00: like all this OAD stuff and,
29:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:22
SPEAKER_00: just people actually debating if they should speak out or not.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Of course you should fucking speak out.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, you should draw the line somewhere.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: You know,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: what's the point of having these giant platforms,
29:36
SPEAKER_00: all these,
29:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:37
SPEAKER_00: 50 best lists and shit if you're not going to use them?
29:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, if it's just about a business, then making it about a business, but...
29:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's really stupid because they are talking about sustainability and the 50
29:50
SPEAKER_02: best ceremonies in Dubai.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: I can go on and on about all this stuff.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: And there is,
29:56
SPEAKER_00: okay,
29:57
SPEAKER_02: let's take the best sustainability thing and you are in Dubai and you take a plane
30:03
SPEAKER_02: or three planes to get there and then went to Madrid and so it's like,
30:07
SPEAKER_02: okay,
30:07
SPEAKER_02: so it's good for you and...
30:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
30:12
SPEAKER_03: but there are
30:14
SPEAKER_03: I guess the disconnection happens in two ways.
30:17
SPEAKER_03: And I am wondering if it's in what the so-called developed countries,
30:23
SPEAKER_03: it's more about the industrial production of food and how unhealthy it can be.
30:29
SPEAKER_03: And in more rural areas, it's the poverty.
30:34
SPEAKER_03: So I think there are two different questions here.
30:36
SPEAKER_03: One is the health issue and the quality of food we are getting and
30:42
SPEAKER_03: consuming and the other one is who benefits from the whole chain right and when you
30:48
SPEAKER_03: hide the source you hide the poverty and you have the extreme conditions in which
30:55
SPEAKER_03: people produce the food we are getting right so yeah for sure one one discussion of
31:03
SPEAKER_03: one thing to address and chefs have a an important role here is um
31:10
SPEAKER_03: what is this food made of, literally made of, right?
31:14
SPEAKER_03: And the other one is what are the people producing it, eating, and how are they living?
31:22
SPEAKER_03: And I wonder if part of hiding this or avoiding these scenarios have to do with
31:27
SPEAKER_03: avoiding the discussion about poverty and inequality.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: I think there is an issue as well with the restaurants or the fine dining restaurants.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: They have a really structured pitch.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: There is local, there is sustainability, fair trade or fair pay for the producers.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: But in some way, there is more than that.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: A lot of fine dining restaurants...
31:57
SPEAKER_02: They don't know where is the people that have this potato of these.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: They only know the story about,
32:04
SPEAKER_02: oh,
32:05
SPEAKER_02: they are from Cauca,
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Bogota,
32:08
SPEAKER_02: and there is a guy who...
32:10
SPEAKER_02: And now we pay fair,
32:12
SPEAKER_02: you know?
32:13
SPEAKER_02: And when we are talking with some friends, chefs and everything, I say that it's a different...
32:21
SPEAKER_02: a payment if you pay like prosperous living or a living income to a fair income.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: Because you as chef,
32:31
SPEAKER_02: they are not paying it like they're just a salary for making food,
32:38
SPEAKER_02: get dressed and go to school.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: You want to travel, you want to take dinner in other restaurants, you want to go to family on vacations.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: And that's the thing that I was thinking and I'm thinking right now,
32:50
SPEAKER_02: and it's how can the farmers and the producers get the price or the money that they
33:00
SPEAKER_02: needed for a prosperous living,
33:02
SPEAKER_02: for a living income,
33:03
SPEAKER_02: not only for survive.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: And because in the restaurants, I sold ingredients in Colombia.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: I have a platform called Mucho Colombia.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: And we don't want to sell to restaurants anymore because they want everything cheap,
33:25
SPEAKER_02: no matter if there's a high level,
33:27
SPEAKER_02: because it's more important the people in the homes that can really interest in the
33:33
SPEAKER_02: matter that the people in restaurants,
33:35
SPEAKER_02: because the food chain,
33:37
SPEAKER_02: it's not because I have to pay the salaries and everything I can get,
33:42
SPEAKER_02: please get me a discount.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: It's like you pay,
33:45
SPEAKER_02: have to be the only that can't make a discount of the producers because it's...
33:51
SPEAKER_02: So it's like an issue as well right now for me for the pitch of the restaurants.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Explain what Mucho... Is it Mucho Colombia, right?
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: It just goes by Mucho Col.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: In Instagram, it's Mucho Col.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: But it's basically a distribution company.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: platform right right now we are doing it we we make like um a methodology who who
34:21
SPEAKER_02: help the producers to eliminate all the intermediate work so they can have the
34:29
SPEAKER_02: technology to sell to produce to send the the food because
34:35
SPEAKER_02: It's really difficult to do the logistics in Colombia.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: We started like finding some exotic and biodiversity products,
34:44
SPEAKER_02: but it's really difficult and it's really almost impossible,
34:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
34:52
SPEAKER_02: to sell from the Pacific coast fish
34:58
SPEAKER_02: artisanal catch and buy it in Bogota.
35:02
SPEAKER_02: They have to take two planes and we say,
35:05
SPEAKER_02: okay,
35:06
SPEAKER_02: this is not a sustainability thing besides how they are taking the fish out of the sea.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: And right now it's better if we
35:17
SPEAKER_02: almost send up seller products that the producers want to sell and they can give us
35:24
SPEAKER_02: give us the products in bogota because we have like a company there and it's online
35:29
SPEAKER_02: and we only focus on specific products like tucupi macambo green pepper vanilla all
35:41
SPEAKER_02: of difference that they needed to sell
35:44
SPEAKER_02: Not that they have to sell because they can sell it as well.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: So we can give the methodology.
35:50
SPEAKER_02: This is sell and learn because we are involving the young people with the technology.
35:57
SPEAKER_02: So if we want to create like a generational technology,
36:05
SPEAKER_02: See, change, generative change of the people who doesn't leave the farms or doesn't leave the field.
36:13
SPEAKER_02: So we are taking this advantage of technology and they are doing it.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: And the fathers are taking care of the harvest and the crops and all that.
36:24
SPEAKER_02: So right now it's like a methodology and we sell products as well, but distributed in Colombia.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: So is there like a central warehouse in Bogota or something where everything is just coming in?
36:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes, there is.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: And we tell the stories of a product with the names of the producers.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: We are not taking credit for the products.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: We don't need that.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: We help them to sell the products.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: It's more transparency.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: It's a transparency there in the...
36:58
SPEAKER_00: the food chain so so if you're not concentrating on restaurants like who's buying
37:04
SPEAKER_00: these things because i mean i imagine you can't just buy like six macabre like you
37:10
SPEAKER_00: know like you have to buy probably like a few kilos or something
37:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
37:17
SPEAKER_02: but the Macambo is an interesting project because there are like,
37:21
SPEAKER_02: not in Colombia,
37:23
SPEAKER_02: is not too much of Macambos who are,
37:26
SPEAKER_02: of the people organized who are producing it.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: No,
37:29
SPEAKER_02: it's like a small community that they have,
37:34
SPEAKER_02: but we sell the Macambo sometimes with a easy recipe to do it.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: For example, in my home, we're using it.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: in a bowl of fruits like a smoothie and we put some macumbo and it's beautiful or in a cold soup.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: So it's not about the amount of the product.
37:59
SPEAKER_02: It's more quality and how you can use it.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: So the people in homes after the COVID, they are cooking it a lot.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: So it's better because they...
38:13
SPEAKER_02: Because the target of the food industry is really small,
38:17
SPEAKER_02: you know,
38:17
SPEAKER_02: the people who knows about food is really small,
38:20
SPEAKER_02: but the people who are like to eat is more artists,
38:23
SPEAKER_02: musicians,
38:25
SPEAKER_02: normally people,
38:25
SPEAKER_02: writers,
38:26
SPEAKER_02: like everywhere can eat it and they like it.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: So it was like a target that we were missing with restaurants.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: What about something like Ducoupi?
38:36
SPEAKER_00: I imagine most people in Bogota don't know what the hell to do.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: Actually, the Tukupi is the only product, but I think we sell to the restaurants.
38:47
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: But the people, we sell like the new soy sauce.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: They really...
38:55
SPEAKER_02: new one and they're loving it.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: They love it with beef, with grills, with eggs.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like a perfect sauce.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorite things ever.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: It sounds so...
39:13
SPEAKER_00: like exotic to people,
39:15
SPEAKER_00: but really it's,
39:16
SPEAKER_00: it's,
39:16
SPEAKER_00: it's something like just so beautiful that you don't really have to be a trained
39:20
SPEAKER_00: cook to do anything with.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: You just have to just use it and dump it on shit.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's wonderful.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: And comes from the manioc or the yucca.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: And it's so, so easy.
39:31
SPEAKER_02: And it has like,
39:32
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
39:33
SPEAKER_02: some,
39:33
SPEAKER_02: somebody went,
39:34
SPEAKER_02: went to try it here to tell me,
39:36
SPEAKER_02: okay,
39:36
SPEAKER_02: but they have fish sauce and it's like,
39:39
SPEAKER_02: I know this natural,
39:40
SPEAKER_02: but,
39:41
SPEAKER_02: it can taste like the same.
39:45
SPEAKER_03: How is the conversation with the purveyors, producers?
39:49
SPEAKER_03: What are the challenges you have found when approaching them?
39:55
SPEAKER_03: how do you choose or find uh who to work with and how big is the network because
40:02
SPEAKER_03: you know there is like a preliminary work done there so i am curious about that
40:07
SPEAKER_02: part yes we understood that the the best way to do it is goes to a community and
40:17
SPEAKER_02: and talk with them and have like real connection and knowing what they need
40:24
SPEAKER_02: You know,
40:25
SPEAKER_02: we don't want it to be an NGO who go with a project and they,
40:29
SPEAKER_02: okay,
40:29
SPEAKER_02: you have to be partner of you and you have to fish and you have to take care of the fish.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: So we understood that sometimes they don't want to be fishermen.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: They have like a lot of fish in the sea, but they don't want to be, no, I want to make cookies.
40:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so what kind of cookies are you making?
40:44
SPEAKER_02: And you have this product, it's really interesting.
40:48
SPEAKER_02: You want to make an economy about it?
40:50
SPEAKER_02: No, okay.
40:50
SPEAKER_02: So it's understand what they need, that they want to work.
40:54
SPEAKER_02: No, go there and try to do some things.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: And there is another part of the process
41:03
SPEAKER_02: of the role that we do and is how they can be partners of mucho,
41:10
SPEAKER_02: know how they can only provide the food.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: When the people are partners of some project, you care about the project.
41:18
SPEAKER_02: And that's the really small line for that.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: I always talk about the case for a restaurant in Colombia, the name is Wok.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: When they started to do the sustainability,
41:35
SPEAKER_02: the fish chain,
41:38
SPEAKER_02: they talk with the people in the Bay of Solano,
41:42
SPEAKER_02: in the Pacific coast,
41:43
SPEAKER_02: and they told them,
41:45
SPEAKER_02: okay,
41:46
SPEAKER_02: you are going to be my partner in this.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: We are going to build this, I don't know how you mean.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: Cold storage.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, cold storage.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: But you are going to be partner.
42:00
SPEAKER_02: And they started to be partners.
42:01
SPEAKER_02: And right now they, I don't know, it's like a really big community that they are involved with.
42:09
SPEAKER_02: WOC is one of their 20 clients that they have.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: And so it's different when you can connect with partnership and take as a part of
42:19
SPEAKER_02: the business and not only,
42:20
SPEAKER_02: okay,
42:21
SPEAKER_02: this is the product and this is what it costs.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: It's what is going to take more time
42:28
SPEAKER_02: more to not only sell, but what are you doing with my product?
42:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: So they can connect more with the business.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: I think it's better and it's good.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: I was talking with a coffee store here with a guy from Colombia,
42:44
SPEAKER_02: and it was how can we make the producers,
42:48
SPEAKER_02: the coffee producers,
42:50
SPEAKER_02: more part of the business and not only the...
42:54
SPEAKER_02: the people who are harvesting and that's it.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: So it's, it's, it's different.
42:59
SPEAKER_02: And we have like a really good connection with people and that's really transparency.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: The coast, we show the coast of the logistic of the packaging on everything.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: And if you agree with that, okay, perfect.
43:11
SPEAKER_02: So like now we can, we can start.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Now you're in Spain and you've started a project there.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, another... Like, you have so many things going on.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I don't know how you have time for all of this stuff.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: But first of all, why did you move to Spain to begin with?
43:33
SPEAKER_02: One of the main reasons is the education of my daughter.
43:38
SPEAKER_02: Here is free in Colombia.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: A good education is really expensive.
43:44
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, I think...
43:48
SPEAKER_02: Here are more the issues that I want to talk are globally in Colombia.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: That is amazing.
43:55
SPEAKER_02: But I think with these 10 years of projects, I felt like a little, um,
44:02
SPEAKER_02: Like boxed down a little bit.
44:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: Because, yeah, I did series, food series, photos, talk with restaurants, everything.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: But I think in a country like,
44:14
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
44:15
SPEAKER_02: Spain or United States or Europe,
44:17
SPEAKER_02: it's like more globally the discussion.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: And it was more like that for me and for my wife, for Carmen as well.
44:26
SPEAKER_02: It was like a big opportunity too.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: to spread the pitch that we are working on for several years right now.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: The project you started in Spain is called Migrant Food Systems.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: What is this exactly?
44:42
SPEAKER_02: As a migrant is like a real passion.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: Juliana can tell that as well.
44:50
SPEAKER_02: No, right now what I'm feeling in Madrid is like the migration.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: In Spain,
44:56
SPEAKER_02: migration is a big deal right now,
44:59
SPEAKER_02: but nobody connects migration with food and with culture of food.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: So I try to go to find some restaurants here, Ethiopian, Asian, Vietnamese, or Cuban, or whatever.
45:18
SPEAKER_02: And I saw that it's like, it's Madrid right now.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: It's like a London in a couple of years ago because you find everything, everything, everyone else.
45:29
SPEAKER_02: But the discussion about the migration in food are so poor.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: So I'm trying to connect with the people of the restaurants with a really curated restaurants as well.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: and the stories behind the people.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to go to a fine dining restaurant,
45:47
SPEAKER_02: a Georgian fine dining restaurant,
45:48
SPEAKER_02: because it's different.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: I want to connect the stories of the migration people who are living here for 25 years,
45:57
SPEAKER_02: working with the kids,
45:58
SPEAKER_02: like these kind of stories,
46:00
SPEAKER_02: and how I can connect a platform
46:03
SPEAKER_02: that you can,
46:04
SPEAKER_02: like tourism or locally,
46:05
SPEAKER_02: go there and find a place or find a dish or find an event around it.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: So it's important that people are liking it, the people who are interviewing this.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: There is a girl from the Mercado Maravillas who is like the Latin market here.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: And she came like 25 years ago alone.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: She had four kids and every five years they bring like one kid.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: And right now she's doing it like really good.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: Valle del Cauca food.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: There is a region of Colombia, Cali food.
46:44
SPEAKER_02: Really, really nice.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: And that's good.
46:46
SPEAKER_02: So we're making a podcast.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: We're making photos.
46:49
SPEAKER_02: We give them the photos and the podcast and everything as well if they want to put
46:54
SPEAKER_02: it on the social networks.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: And we are trying to...
47:00
SPEAKER_02: to connect with people with the restaurant.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: So if they connect with the restaurant,
47:05
SPEAKER_02: they have like a little person for me and for them,
47:09
SPEAKER_02: the other products and everything.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: So it can connect food markets, food in not only restaurants, also también food stores.
47:20
SPEAKER_02: Migrant food stores.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: And that's the thing.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: We are right now mapping all the places in Madrid that it's a lot.
47:28
SPEAKER_02: But we wanted to elevate the pitch of the migrants, the migrant food system here in Madrid.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned the discussion around migrants is so poor there.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
47:44
SPEAKER_00: It's just like migrants are like demonized kind of thing?
47:48
SPEAKER_02: With food,
47:49
SPEAKER_02: the migrants are in the,
47:52
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
47:52
SPEAKER_02: the main speech is like the migrants are robbery or the migrants are taking us,
48:00
SPEAKER_02: our jobs.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: Or the migrants are,
48:03
SPEAKER_02: it's the same discussion here in the United States,
48:06
SPEAKER_02: in Europe in general,
48:09
SPEAKER_02: but the people don't know that the migrants are,
48:13
SPEAKER_02: they're harvesting here in almost all the food chains,
48:18
SPEAKER_02: olive oil,
48:20
SPEAKER_02: strawberries are 95% are migrants.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: So they are the owners or the farmers,
48:27
SPEAKER_02: but the people who are working in the field are migrants,
48:30
SPEAKER_02: all of them.
48:32
SPEAKER_02: And it's not a connection with food.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: They love the Japanese food.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: but they don't connect that the Japanese is the same like the African,
48:45
SPEAKER_02: you know,
48:46
SPEAKER_02: that they are like taking apart.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: So migration is like a one topic right now here.
48:52
SPEAKER_02: And it's like a government issue.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: And they talk like, no, do we have to take out the migrants?
48:58
SPEAKER_02: Please don't come out.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: The Latin Americans, the Africans, the Asians, the,
49:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
49:04
SPEAKER_03: and I was wondering if you can give us an example of,
49:07
SPEAKER_03: because there is the migration aspect of it,
49:11
SPEAKER_03: but there is also the concept of food systems,
49:15
SPEAKER_03: right?
49:15
SPEAKER_03: And you connect these two things.
49:17
SPEAKER_03: And I was wondering if you can give us an example of maybe with the case of the
49:22
SPEAKER_03: woman from Cali and how that food system is being recreated or created or built
49:31
SPEAKER_03: around the work that she does and her life story?
49:36
SPEAKER_02: She started to work in hotels and, well, she started to work in homes, cleaning, like a cleaning lady.
49:46
SPEAKER_02: And a couple of years went to hotels and she started to cook in homes.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: And the people telling like, okay, this is good thing.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: And she had a husband right now who was the owner of a butchery in the Mercado Maravillas.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: And the guy told us, you can cook here in a place.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: This place is getting good for Latin American people because there are some arepas
50:23
SPEAKER_02: from Venezuela,
50:24
SPEAKER_02: from people from Peru.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: So she started to cook and they realized that she can connect the whole market to the food in Venezuela.
50:36
SPEAKER_02: in her place.
50:37
SPEAKER_02: So she started to work with the people who are trying to,
50:41
SPEAKER_02: who are connected with corn and import corn from Colombia.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: And he told his son that he can do it something with flour as well,
50:55
SPEAKER_02: with harina pan,
50:56
SPEAKER_02: who is a big product here.
50:59
SPEAKER_02: So it's the system that she built up around it is more like a collective way from the market as well.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: And she understood that if the people here can give me the products and I can
51:13
SPEAKER_02: connect with my family and their needs,
51:15
SPEAKER_02: that's a food chain and it's changing as well.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: So the system is also a social, political and economic ways and environmental, but this is other story.
51:28
SPEAKER_02: But the people in those markets and the people who are working in food that are not
51:36
SPEAKER_02: of the part are building like and remember their own culture,
51:41
SPEAKER_02: trying to make a new system of living because the restaurant is a system of living
51:45
SPEAKER_02: and it's really interesting how they are doing it.
51:49
SPEAKER_02: but is how can connect with his country, with the origin.
51:54
SPEAKER_02: So that's really important for them as well,
51:56
SPEAKER_02: to connect with the origin and to try to take the family in the business as well.
52:04
SPEAKER_02: Almost all the people that I'm talking with is like,
52:07
SPEAKER_02: no,
52:07
SPEAKER_02: he's my brother,
52:08
SPEAKER_02: he's my sister,
52:09
SPEAKER_02: he's like somebody that I knew,
52:11
SPEAKER_02: my nephew,
52:12
SPEAKER_02: my nephew.
52:12
SPEAKER_02: So it's like a project that can grow.
52:17
SPEAKER_03: And are you working specifically now with Latino communities or with migrants from other places?
52:22
SPEAKER_02: With migrants from other places.
52:24
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I'm working with Ethiopian girl.
52:28
SPEAKER_02: I work, I just recorded and it's amazing.
52:31
SPEAKER_02: And she was saying that like I cook Ethiopian food because I want to get close for
52:37
SPEAKER_02: Ethiopia because she can't go because her father was Eritrean.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: And her mother was Ethiopian, so she can't work in this country because they're not allowed to do it.
52:53
SPEAKER_02: So she's right now here in Madrid, and it's the only way that she can connect with the people.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: And the spices came from his sister in Ethiopia.
53:05
SPEAKER_02: So it's amazing how the migration and the food systems can work for a lot of people from different ways.
53:14
SPEAKER_02: But now with Asian community as well, I'm working on Arab community.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: And it's a big topic because we have to migrate because of the climate change.
53:23
SPEAKER_02: I think if we are not,
53:26
SPEAKER_02: taking the piece of the migration and how these foods and this food culture can
53:33
SPEAKER_02: make positive the environment that we have because really when the people of Spain
53:38
SPEAKER_02: started thinking,
53:39
SPEAKER_02: wow,
53:40
SPEAKER_02: what if I mix Ethiopian food with Spanish food?
53:42
SPEAKER_02: It's going to be a bomb.
53:44
SPEAKER_02: So we have to make the peace of the migrations because of climate change.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: You have to go.
53:50
SPEAKER_02: Right now we are the migrations,
53:51
SPEAKER_02: but someday you have to go to the Sur Global that is now called and take a batch of this.
54:01
SPEAKER_03: We have to choose some of your projects because if not... No, sorry.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's so much going on.
54:11
SPEAKER_03: No, no, don't apologize for being productive.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're very productive, man.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: Why is it important to keep creating these projects?
54:23
SPEAKER_00: Is the aim to make them sustainable in the long term or is it just to spark conversations?
54:35
SPEAKER_02: I think for me is...
54:38
SPEAKER_02: It can relate for the feeling that I have in my stomach from the guts.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: I think all the work that I'm doing and that I do, it's about my guts.
54:51
SPEAKER_02: It's about trying to, with my tools,
54:58
SPEAKER_02: can amplify a message for the people that sometimes need it.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: You know,
55:02
SPEAKER_02: it's like,
55:02
SPEAKER_02: because I'm good with the camera,
55:04
SPEAKER_02: I know how to put a micro and I love graphic design and I can put this together and
55:11
SPEAKER_02: show a different way a problem.
55:14
SPEAKER_02: I don't like to...
55:16
SPEAKER_02: to, how do you say, I don't like to show the people about things.
55:21
SPEAKER_02: I like to show in other view.
55:24
SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: It's in different point of view, the same problem.
55:29
SPEAKER_02: So for me to take a project and to be part of it has to be like a,
55:39
SPEAKER_02: All of the social connection.
55:41
SPEAKER_02: I am more connecting with people than for environmental thing.
55:48
SPEAKER_02: I like to work with people.
55:49
SPEAKER_02: I like to connect with people,
55:51
SPEAKER_02: to have the stories,
55:52
SPEAKER_02: to have feelings,
55:54
SPEAKER_02: and everything's connected to the earth,
55:56
SPEAKER_02: to rivers,
55:57
SPEAKER_02: that's good.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: But for me,
55:59
SPEAKER_02: the main topic of my work is about people and connect with different kinds of
56:04
SPEAKER_02: people all over the world and tell the stories.
56:07
SPEAKER_02: about the food culture that I think is my passion.
56:13
SPEAKER_03: Have you connect,
56:14
SPEAKER_03: talking about emotionally connection,
56:17
SPEAKER_03: emotional connection with people,
56:19
SPEAKER_03: have you connected there with colleagues doing similar things to you?
56:25
SPEAKER_03: Have you found out there maybe more than he?
56:29
SPEAKER_03: Not really.
56:30
SPEAKER_03: Colleagues like photographers, writers, social scientists, researchers,
56:37
SPEAKER_02: more than here or the same or different yes yes actually i have like a like a
56:43
SPEAKER_02: friends of mine i had like i have a person who who wrote in my book as well as you
56:51
SPEAKER_02: juliana wrote my book as well and
56:57
SPEAKER_02: And she's like a journalist who is like really deep into social problems with governments.
57:06
SPEAKER_02: And she was in the Senate of Spain and it's a really inspiring girl, best friend.
57:14
SPEAKER_02: But I think,
57:17
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
57:18
SPEAKER_02: some photographers,
57:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't usually,
57:21
SPEAKER_02: I have a few photographers that I like,
57:23
SPEAKER_02: but
57:25
SPEAKER_02: But right now, I don't want to be classified as only a photographer.
57:32
SPEAKER_02: I think it's like a project.
57:33
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's better if I can say some people who are working on different types of projects like...
57:46
SPEAKER_02: right now it's really difficult to to understand but social leaders in so places
57:51
SPEAKER_02: you know that stories are like wow this if they can do it there it is i can do it
57:58
SPEAKER_02: here whatever i can do so i i used to have like a lot of photographers and
58:04
SPEAKER_02: everything but i don't found and it's not like oh no i'm the only one who do that
58:09
SPEAKER_02: connection no but but it's it's no i don't know what
58:17
SPEAKER_00: Do you find there are more opportunities for this type of work in Spain than in Colombia?
58:25
SPEAKER_02: For actually hearing in Spain,
58:29
SPEAKER_02: are seeing that there's like a gap in the food chains,
58:34
SPEAKER_02: that there are really good restaurants and the chefs are really in good positions,
58:38
SPEAKER_02: Ferran,
58:39
SPEAKER_02: Adrià,
58:40
SPEAKER_02: Berasategui,
58:41
SPEAKER_02: everyone.
58:44
SPEAKER_02: and the traditional food,
58:46
SPEAKER_02: the paella and everything,
58:48
SPEAKER_02: but there is a gap between the people who are producing it and this line and the
58:57
SPEAKER_02: restaurants and the chefs.
58:58
SPEAKER_02: They are like a really big gap and that's an opportunity for the people who want to
59:04
SPEAKER_02: make documentaries or who want to make photos about it for the food chains because...
59:10
SPEAKER_00: But do you feel like...
59:12
SPEAKER_00: there are publications that are looking for these things in Spain more so than in
59:19
SPEAKER_00: Colombia or Latin America.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, like, I don't know, just publications and whatever.
59:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
59:26
SPEAKER_00: I feel like in Latin America,
59:28
SPEAKER_00: maybe there aren't as many opportunities for,
59:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
59:32
SPEAKER_00: to maybe push the issues as much outside of like an academic setting.
59:37
SPEAKER_02: No, but yes, I don't know here.
59:42
SPEAKER_02: The journalism, for example, here are really, really difficult times.
59:48
SPEAKER_02: It's really difficult for a journalist to live here.
59:53
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I met a guy in a bar who was a cameraman.
59:58
SPEAKER_02: He told me five years ago,
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: I was working in Uganda,
1:00:02
SPEAKER_02: making documentaries,
1:00:03
SPEAKER_02: and right now I'm filming an influencer making food.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_02: What was he drinking, just out of curiosity?
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: Beer.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: it's like there are really hard times and it's,
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
1:00:20
SPEAKER_02: the food,
1:00:22
SPEAKER_02: photography and everything here is so superficial.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's an opportunity to maybe can take a bunch of it.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_02: And in Colombia, for example,
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: I can say for the food culture,
1:00:38
SPEAKER_02: we have like another journalism that made the work that I did or that I'm doing.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: They have like a really good world photographers,
1:00:48
SPEAKER_02: social photographers,
1:00:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:00:50
SPEAKER_02: like Enrique,
1:00:51
SPEAKER_02: like Federico Rios,
1:00:53
SPEAKER_02: who won everything with the Darien Gap.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_02: And there are really social photographers that are really, really good.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_02: But in the matter of food, of food culture, of the communities,
1:01:06
SPEAKER_02: You are one of the journalists that can say that we don't have a lot because it was...
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: But to be fair,
1:01:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm not publishing in Colombia,
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: really.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm publishing in the U.S.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_00: So it's like I wish I could find outlets in Latin America,
1:01:25
SPEAKER_00: but it seems like they...
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: And they don't have like a...
1:01:30
SPEAKER_02: What do you think,
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: Juliana,
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: about it?
1:01:33
SPEAKER_02: because you work in a food magazine there.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_03: I think it's both, honestly.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_03: It's contradictory, but I think it's both.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_03: I think you're saying, you two are saying something that is true and it can coexist in a weird way.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_03: Like, as you say, Nick,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_03: the publishing houses are not,
1:01:53
SPEAKER_03: or the main money,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_03: source of money is not coming from Latin America,
1:01:59
SPEAKER_03: but at the same time,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_03: seems that there are more interests here.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_03: So it's, I cannot...
1:02:06
SPEAKER_03: compute these two things, but I think you both are saying something that is true.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_03: And I actually had a question for Nick about that.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_03: And it's like, I mean, I live in California, Los Angeles.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_03: I go to Columbia three, four times a year if I can.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_03: And I keep having this sense that even when people are maybe closer to producers or
1:02:28
SPEAKER_03: trying to shorten the bridge between production and consumption,
1:02:38
SPEAKER_03: I keep feeling that in Latin America, the connection is more intimate or easier or just more natural.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_03: Or I don't know if it's like there is more awareness or it's because...
1:02:53
SPEAKER_03: the rural and the urban are closer or less industrial production?
1:02:58
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_03: I have that sense, but I don't know, Nick, because you have been in rural places in the U.S.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_03: where you come from, you're close to small producers.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_03: So what is your sense of that?
1:03:10
SPEAKER_03: If it's different or not?
1:03:12
SPEAKER_03: As Alejandro was saying in Spain, he has that sense in Spain.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_00: I think there still is a connection between the food and the landscape in Latin America.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_00: And in the United States, it's very limited.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like our entire agricultural systems, you know, been developed over the last 300 years.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, indigenous agriculture was pretty much wiped out.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can still find it in little pockets here and there.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_00: But generally, all the food we get is...
1:03:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:03:48
SPEAKER_00: these big commercial crops for the most part,
1:03:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: in,
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: of course there were small farmers and farmers markets now,
1:03:54
SPEAKER_00: but 20 years ago,
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: there weren't,
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:03:58
SPEAKER_00: like growing up in the eighties in suburban Ohio,
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know of a farm.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_00: Like there was the only things I saw growing were corn on the side of the highway that,
1:04:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:04:10
SPEAKER_00: it wasn't,
1:04:10
SPEAKER_00: it was for animal feed.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like you ate that corn.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_00: It was just fields and miles and miles of it.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_00: It just went on forever, but it was like, you didn't need it.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: And like,
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: you didn't really see small farms anywhere or,
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: especially not growing,
1:04:27
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:04:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:04:29
SPEAKER_00: land-raised corn or squash and beans and things like that.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_00: I think there's still that connection still exists in a big way in Latin America.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_00: Though I do think it's changing very rapidly.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think food system changes.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: is industrializing very quickly.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:04:47
SPEAKER_00: you can just look at the amount of supermarkets popping up in Bogota or Medellin or
1:04:52
SPEAKER_00: Lima or Santiago or whatever,
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: and it's just like the way people are eating is changing very quickly.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the same shit as we're eating everywhere.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_00: But I think there are still those regional food systems that are still around and
1:05:10
SPEAKER_00: still can be preserved and strengthened.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: and I was thinking when you were talking,
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: Nick,
1:05:18
SPEAKER_02: and it is like in Latin America,
1:05:22
SPEAKER_02: also in Africa,
1:05:24
SPEAKER_02: and also it's cultural as well,
1:05:27
SPEAKER_02: the food.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_02: The food is always there.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_02: It's different food for the restaurants, fine dining, yes, the same ingredients but different food.
1:05:35
SPEAKER_02: But the people are showing you sancocho and it's the same and it comes with music
1:05:41
SPEAKER_02: and with a hug and with a...
1:05:44
SPEAKER_02: his grandmother, his mother.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_02: It's like a cultural thing.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_02: You can eat a different traditional food and always have to be cultural around the
1:05:57
SPEAKER_02: landscape as well because we have like a Paseo Oja,
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: the Sacoche in the river.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_02: And this is about landscape.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_02: It's about family.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_02: It's about culture.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_02: It's about heritage.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_02: So I think it's cultural.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't have that connection,
1:06:12
SPEAKER_02: You have the agriculture 100 years ago, a big one as well.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_02: So you lost the connection between two things.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not to say we're completely devout of connection here.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's much more limited.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:06:32
SPEAKER_00: there are still,
1:06:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:06:34
SPEAKER_00: if you go to New England,
1:06:35
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: the fishing communities and things have a big part in what people eat and
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: In different parts of the country, it's different.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think the industrialized food hit us much earlier and in a bigger way.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_00: Really deep connections.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:06:59
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, anyway, that's where we're all here talking about these things, I think.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: No,
1:07:06
SPEAKER_02: there is an opportunity,
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: I think,
1:07:07
SPEAKER_02: because everything is going to be,
1:07:10
SPEAKER_02: and everything is finding,
1:07:11
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
1:07:12
SPEAKER_02: the spiritual way,
1:07:13
SPEAKER_02: go to origin,
1:07:14
SPEAKER_02: to the spiritual thing,
1:07:16
SPEAKER_02: go to the origin of food,
1:07:19
SPEAKER_02: how can food were made before.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_02: The people are interesting adults.
1:07:23
SPEAKER_02: We need more information about it,
1:07:25
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:07:25
SPEAKER_02: more historical information,
1:07:27
SPEAKER_02: note in books and educational,
1:07:29
SPEAKER_02: because...
1:07:30
SPEAKER_02: nobody's going to read it.
1:07:32
SPEAKER_02: So for us communicators and for the channel,
1:07:36
SPEAKER_02: it has to be like more,
1:07:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
1:07:39
SPEAKER_02: like the thing that you're doing more fun.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_02: It has to be fun for the people because people are seeing news everywhere, seeing news and everything.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_02: So something fun and something positive is important.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_02: So on a really inspirational topic, inspirational history.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:07:58
SPEAKER_00: no,
1:07:58
SPEAKER_00: I do think the global,
1:08:00
SPEAKER_00: even though the patterns say otherwise in,
1:08:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:08:04
SPEAKER_00: statistics,
1:08:05
SPEAKER_00: I do think the global consciousness around food is changing too.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_00: I think it's, there is a big opportunity there to create a really positive change.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_02: For everyone, I think.
1:08:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
1:08:23
SPEAKER_03: and to go back to your photography,
1:08:25
SPEAKER_03: Alejandro,
1:08:25
SPEAKER_03: I think something you capture apart from,
1:08:28
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:08:28
SPEAKER_03: maybe challenging situations and realities of life,
1:08:34
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:08:34
SPEAKER_03: different lifestyles,
1:08:35
SPEAKER_03: I think it's the joy of people too,
1:08:37
SPEAKER_03: like,
1:08:38
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:08:38
SPEAKER_03: the...
1:08:39
SPEAKER_03: Total.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_03: The joy of these people doing what they do, a smile, just a gesture.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_03: They are not, you know, unhappy, depressed, miserable people.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_02: People in the farms are not unhappy.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_02: It's a reality.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_02: They love it.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_02: They live in it.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_02: And when you go and see it and you go and you have interest, they just have a really big smile.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_03: They transmit that and you capture it.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_02: And that's really important to me,
1:09:11
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:09:11
SPEAKER_02: not show the bad things,
1:09:14
SPEAKER_02: it's show how people can be like proud of what they are doing.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_02: So that's really important.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_02: And you both are...
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: went to to those territories and there is only a big plate for you there is already
1:09:32
SPEAKER_02: a smile there's only a story there is only a laugh and it's always love you say why
1:09:37
SPEAKER_02: because you don't have nothing but you are so happy it's like wow because we don't
1:09:42
SPEAKER_02: actually i think we don't need too much to be like this so it's really uh uh
1:09:51
SPEAKER_02: inspirational yeah in
1:09:54
SPEAKER_02: inspirational relation that I want to make,
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: inspiring connection that I want to have with the people involved with the book and
1:10:03
SPEAKER_02: the people who try to work around me as well.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_00: On that note, let's leave it on something positive before some darkness creeps into the conversation.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_01: Seems like we connect pretty well.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Julian.
1:10:25
SPEAKER_00: All right, man.
1:10:25
SPEAKER_00: It was good talking to you.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_00: It was good seeing you in Barranquilla a couple months ago.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, good talking to you.
1:10:31
SPEAKER_00: The book's great and everyone should buy it.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_02: Stay in touch.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_02: Always.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
1:10:43
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everyone, for listening.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Alejandro Olses,
1:10:49
SPEAKER_00: the food photographer or just documentary photographer from Bogota,
1:10:53
SPEAKER_00: Colombia,
1:10:54
SPEAKER_00: now living in Madrid,
1:10:55
SPEAKER_00: Spain.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_00: Thanks to Juliana Duque, as always, for co-hosting.
1:11:02
SPEAKER_00: And everyone, just stay positive.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of work to do.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's a big opportunity.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_00: Let's put it that way.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_00: To do something big.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_00: So thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard for providing the music for the show.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't subscribed to the newsletter, please do, newworlder.com or newworlder on Substack.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_00: And also please share us, like us.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_00: We're doing everything we can to keep this thing going.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_00: So please help us.