Museo Aero Solar Cuarachi

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Hoy nos sumergimos profundo en la historia del Museo Aero Solar (MAS), reviviendo uno de los MAS más asombrosos jamás construidos, por su ubicación única y remota en la selva peruana, por las duras condiciones ambientales que rodearon su nacimiento y, principalmente, por la resiliencia de la comunidad que participó en su construcción. Permítannos reflotar la historia del Museo Aero Solar Cuarachi.

En junio de 2014, un oleoducto estatal reventó en el departamento de Loreto, Perú, contaminando las aguas del río Marañón, del cual los lugareños habían construido su medio de vida durante siglos. La falta de cobertura mediática de esta catástrofe ecológica dejó a las comunidades nativas con pocas esperanzas de recibir ayuda del gobierno.

Los artistas Helga Elsner Torres y Ramiro Wong decidieron pasar a la acción y se pusieron en contacto con la ya consolidada comunidad del Museo Aero Solar, muy activa en Perú.

Helga y Ramiro, que conocían la técnica de construcción de la escultura en forma de tetraedro, junto con un pequeño grupo de artistas y activistas viajaron a la remota localidad de Cuninico. Con el objetivo de documentar el impacto del vertido de petróleo en colaboración con la comunidad Cocama, la que fue mayormente afectada, asumieron el reto de construir colectivamente un Museo Aero Solar.

Helga, en diálogo con la Comunidad Aerocene, recuerda la experiencia: “Viajamos con un buen amigo, Ramiro Wong, desde Lima a Iquitos, y desde ahí en barco 2 horas hasta Nauta. Desde Nauta navegamos durante 12 horas en un pequeño bote, hasta finalmente llegar a Cuninico. Allí una familia nos recibió en su casa y nos dió comida durante los días que nos quedamos trabajando en el proyecto. En una comunidad que vive de los recursos naturales como esta, luego del derrame de petróleo, era muy complicado conseguir pescado no contaminado para comer. Sin embargo, de lo poco que conseguían, nos lo compartieron. Todo el pueblo estuvo dispuesto a ayudarnos. ¡Hasta nos construyeron una balsa para realizar el Museo Aero Solar! Cuninico, a pesar de todas las desgracias por las que pasó, es el lugar con un paisaje más hermoso, cercano a la Reserva Nacional Pacaya Samiria y con la población más generosa que he conocido. Aunque debido a las condiciones climáticas, no pudimos cumplir con el objetivo de documentar el desastre en el tiempo previsto, decidimos que sería óptimo, donar estas esculturas a la comunidad. De esta manera, ellos tendrían una herramienta más para documentar y denunciar el derrame de petróleo. Asimismo nosotros, seguiríamos creando conciencia sobre esta noticia en otros lugares.
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Es por eso que Ramiro, Frances Munar Aparicio @francesmunar y yo exhibimos de la mano del artista Tomás Saraceno la experiencia del Museo Aero Solar en Cuninico, en el Museo 21er Haus en Vienna, Austria. La gente que asistió a la exposición y a la conferencia se quedó boquiabierta: ¿Cómo es posible que, con la máxima impunidad, estos desastres sigan sucediendo? ¿Quién logra hacer una escultura solar en el medio de la Amazonía?”

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En el proceso de armado de un Museo Aero Solar, la remota comunidad Cocama de Cuninico se unió compartiéndonos las miserias de la contaminación ambiental, pero también la alegría de construir juntos una inmensa escultura hecha con bolsas de plástico reutilizadas en las que escribieron sus historias documentando los peligrosos impactos que los vertidos habían tenido en el ecosistema circundante, y en sus propias vidas.

Todas las fotografías son de Helga Elsner, a quien agradecemos por colaborar con la historia del Museo Aero Solar!

Museo Aero Solar Cuarachi

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Today we dive deep into the history of the Museo Aero Solar (MAS), reliving one of the most amazing MAS ever built, due to its unique and remote location in the Peruvian jungle, the harsh environmental conditions that surrounded its birth and, above all, the resilience of the community that participated in its construction. Allow us to bring the story of the Museo Aero Solar Cuarachi back to life.

In June 2014, a state oil pipeline burst in the department of Loreto, Peru, contaminating the waters of the Marañón River, on which the locals had built their livelihoods for centuries. The lack of media coverage of this ecological catastrophe left the native communities with little hope of receiving help from the government.

Artists Helga Elsner Torres and Ramiro Wong decided to take action and reached out to the well-established and active Museo Aero Solar community in Peru.

Helga and Ramiro, who knew the technique of building the tetrahedron-shaped sculpture, together with a small group of artists and activists travelled to the remote village of Cuninico. With the aim of documenting the impact of the oil spill in collaboration with the Cocama community, which was mostly affected, they took on the challenge of collectively building a Museo Aero Solar.

Helga, in dialogue with Aerocene Community, recalls the experience:
“We travelled with a good friend, Ramiro Wong, from Lima to Iquitos, and from there by boat 2 hours to Nauta. From Nauta we sailed for 12 hours in a small boat, until we finally arrived in Cuninico. There, a family welcomed us in their house and gave us food for the days we stayed working on the project. In a community that lives on natural resources like this one, after the oil spill, it was very difficult to find uncontaminated fish to eat. However, what little they could get, they shared with us. The whole village was willing to help us, they even built us a raft for the Aero Solar Museum! Cuninico, in spite of all the misfortunes it has gone through, is the place with the most beautiful landscape, close to the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve and with the most generous population I have ever met. Although due to the weather conditions, we were not able to meet the objective of documenting the disaster in the time foreseen, we decided that it would be optimal to donate these sculptures to the community. In this way, they would have another tool to document and denounce the oil spill. We would also continue to raise awareness about this news in other places.

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That is why Ramiro, Frances Munar Aparicio and I exhibited the experience of the Aero Solar Museum in Cuninico at the 21er Haus Museum in Vienna, Austria, together with the artist Tomás Saraceno. The people who attended the exhibition and the conference were astonished: “How is it possible that, with the utmost impunity, these disasters continue to happen? Who manages to make a solar sculpture in the middle of the Amazon?

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In the process of putting together an Aero Solar Museum, the remote Cocama community of Cuninico came together sharing with us the miseries of environmental pollution, but also the joy of building together an immense sculpture made of reused plastic bags on which they wrote their stories documenting the dangerous impacts the dumping had had on the surrounding ecosystem, and on their own lives.

All photographs are by Helga Elsner, whom we thank for contributing to the Aero Solar Museum story!

Aerocene Arcosanti with Joseph Becker and TSOA

On March 4th, 5th, and 6th, 2022, a group of students from The School of Architecture at Arcosanti flew an Aerocene Sculpture, as part of Professor Joseph Becker’s workshop “RAD/PED,” a three-day exploration of radical pedagogies.

Following the guides included in the Aerocene Backpack atmospheric exploration kit, the team launched an Aerocene sculpture from the spectacular roof of Arcosanti in Arizona, which was able to get aerosolar lift in very cold air. Embracing the do-it-together ethos of the Aerocene, the students also built and launched their own Museo Aero Solar Tetro sculpture out of a thin recycled-plastic drop cloth and plastic bags.

Arcosanti is an experimental town in the high desert of Arizona founded by Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri. Envisioned as an experiment in living frugally and with a limited environmental footprint, Arcosanti is an attempt at a prototype arcology, integrating the design of architecture with respect to ecology.

In dialog with the Aerocene Community, Professor Joseph Becker, who is the Associate Curator of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, expressed: “Cultural revolutions and moments of societal upheaval have contributed to ways of looking beyond the traditional and hierarchical formats of teaching, learning, and making. This workshop examined the circumstances and explores the techniques of a history of radical pedagogy in art and architecture.”