Featured on KODAK
“AYUUK” is a project that started in partnership with Lars Williams from Empirical Spirits, a Copenhagen-based distillery, who uses a special smoke-dried chili grown at 2,700 meters above sea level by farmers from the Mixe people, known in their native language as Ayuuk.
In September 2019, we drove up to the mountains eight hours from Oaxaca to meet with the Mixe community, indigenous people that have been conserving their own dialect for centuries, they call themselves “Ayüükjä’äy” which means “people who speak the language of the mountain”.
Adan Jimenez, an expert agronomist from Oaxaca, who is the main voice of this documentary, was here to give advices and help the farmers from this region to produce better, keeping their traditions alive and their organic ways of cultivating.
The chili is endemic to the eastern highlands of the Sierra Norte mountains outside of Oaxaca City, Mexico. There, the Mixe people have maintained their traditional way of life and language for centuries. The Pasilla Mixe is integral to their communal identity although its labor-intensive cultivation has diminished over time.
Empirical spirits is partnering directly with the farmers to support the longevity of this time-honored tradition.
I documented this trip on 16mm Kodak film and 35mm photography.