Skip to content

Salinas Grandes Meeting 2023

January 14—15, 2023
San Franciso del Alfarcito, Jujuy

We are running out of time. Faced with the worsening of the climate crisis and the urgency of the energy transition, our first message is:

We no longer want to be a sacrifice zone. We need the transition, but we cannot accept just any energy transition, such as the one that is currently trying to be imposed on the peoples of the South through lithium mining, which amplifies social, ethnic and environmental inequalities. We must listen to the voices of the territories, in defense of water, salt flats and our common goods.

This meeting marks the continuation of a long-standing relationship between the research and environmental artivism community Aerocene, founded in 2015 by artist Tomás Saraceno, and the indigenous communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc. In January 2020, the aerosolar sculpture Aerocene Pacha rose over the Salinas Grandes and floated with its pilot, Leticia Noemi Marqués, without the use of fossil fuels, helium or lithium, becoming the most sustainable flight in human history and setting 32 world records recognized by the FAI. The balloon carried the message “Water and life are worth more than lithium” written with the communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc. The Fly with Aerocene Pacha project was supported by the music group BTS, curated by DaeHyung Lee.

On this occasion, the Aerocene team will travel together with representatives of the Colectivo de Acción por la Justicia Ecosocial (CAJE), including Maristella Svampa, Enrique Viale, Gastón Chillier, Melisa Argento, and Alejo de Risio, as well as the lawyer Alicia Chalabe and representatives of the Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, Bruno Fornillo, from the group Geopolítica y bienes comunes, curator Inés Katzenstein, and writers and environmentalists Claudia Aboaf, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and Graciela Speranza.

In conjunction with an agenda of activities that includes workshops on key components for a just Ecosocial Transition from the global South and the centrality of the Rights of Nature in the defense of the Salinas Grandes and Laguna Guayatayoc watershed, the screening of the first cut of Pacha (Dir: Tomás Saraceno and Maximiliano Laina, Argentina/Germany, 2020) will take place. Pacha is an ever-changing film that will continue to be expanded and modified in ongoing dialogue with the communities, the changing situation in the Salinas Grandes, and the evolution of local and global strategies in the face of the environmental crisis, with a new arrangement being presented in June 2023 at Serpentine, London.

* Workshops require prior registration. If you’d like to participate please get in touch with via the Contact page

ACTIVITIES SCHEDULE

Friday, January 13

PRESS CONFERENCE
11:30 hs.

Location: Union of Hotel and Gastronomic Tourism Workers (UTHGRA), Jujuy section, located at 676 Benito Bárcena St., San Salvador de Jujuy.

Saturday, January 14th

Location: Alfarcito Community

COMMUNITY BREAKFAST

8 hs.

Community breakfast in San Francisco de Alfarcito

LEGAL STRATEGIES WORKSHOP
10 hs.

Workshop 1 – Legal Strategies and Visibilization of the Rights of the Salinas Grandes

COMMUNITY LUNCH

13 hs.

Community lunch in San Francisco de Alfarcito

VISIBILIZATION WORKSHOP
15 hs.

Practical workshops to generate strategies, images and messages for the visibilization of the struggle in defense of the Salinas Grandes.

PACHA SCREENING
19 hs.

Screening of Pacha (Dir: Tomás Saraceno and Maximiliano Laina, Argentina/Germany, 2020)

PACHA

A film with the Aerocene community by Tomás Saraceno with Maximiliano Laina, from the Fly with Aerocene Pacha series.

  • Argentina/Germany, 2020
  • Saturday 14 January 2023, 19 hs.
  • Club Social y Deportivo el Porvenir, Av. San Martín s/n, San Francisco de Alfarcito
  • 34 min.

Pacha highlights local communities’ transgenerational testimonies on climate change and their protest against lithium mega-mining, in defence of the salt flat’s fragile ecology, biodiversity and ancestral traditions.

Sunday, January 15th

Location: Alfarcito Community

COMMUNITY BREAKFAST

8 hs.

Community breakfast in San Francisco de Alfarcito

ECOSOCIAL TRANSITION WORKSHOP
10 hs.

Workshop 2: How to give visibility to the struggle of communities in the face of the energy transition and increased lithium extraction – Several cases

COMMUNITY LUNCH

13 hs.

Community lunch in San Francisco de Alfarcito

VISIBILIZATION WORKSHOP
15 hs.

Practical workshops to generate strategies, images and messages for the visibility of the struggle in defense of the Salinas Grandes.

Ecosocial Justice Action Collective (CAJE)

Maristella Svampa, Enrique Viale, Gastón Chillier y Melisa Argento, Alejo di Risio

FARN - Environment & Natural Resources Foundation

Pía Marchegiani, María Laura Castillo Díaz

Mirá - Ecofeminist and Socio-environmental Collective

Maristella Svampa, Claudia Aboaf, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara

AADEAA - Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers

Enrique Viale, Maristella Svampa

Alicia Chalabe

Lawyer for the Indigenous Communities of Salinas Grandes, Jujuy

Verónica Chávez

President of the Aboriginal Community Santuario Tres Pozos

Inés Katzenstein

Visual Arts Curator

Graciela Speranza

Critic, Storyteller, Screenwriter

International Aerocene Community

Tomás Saraceno, Maxi Laina, Lucía Cash, Joaquín Ezcurra