Wiñaymuyu - Seeds That Grow

Wiñaymuyu—meaning Seeds That Grow—is rooted in the understanding that art is lived every day in Kichwa communities through weaving, embroidery, music, storytelling, and collective care.

This project creates a space where Kichwa youth can explore these practices alongside contemporary art forms such as drawing, painting, collage, and mixed media. Through individual and collaborative workshops, participants are invited to express their identities, emotions, and dreams while strengthening their relationship to land, community, and culture.

Co-created with families, elders, artists, and local leaders, Wiñaymuyu centers Indigenous knowledge systems and amplifies local voices throughout the entire process.

• Supported by the Cultural Survival Indigenous Youth Fellowship

• 12-week Indigenous-led art education initiative in Kichwa Otavalo territory, Imbabura (Ecuador)

• Provided sustained, culturally grounded creative access to 15+ Kichwa youth (ages 10+) in a rural Global South community

• Strengthened intergenerational knowledge exchange between youth, elders, and artisans

• Resulted in a permanent community mural as a shared cultural archive

In Kichwa communities, art forms such as woven belts, embroidery, community music, and storytelling carry deep cultural knowledge and continue to shape collective memory. These practices hold stories of land, identity, and belonging that are passed across generations.

Wiñaymuyu uplifts these art forms by creating a culturally grounded space where Kichwa youth can explore both ancestral and contemporary creative practices. The project sparks curiosity, builds emotional awareness, and expands access to artistic tools and mediums that may not be readily available in rural communities. By centering Indigenous youth from the Global South, Wiñaymuyu affirms Indigenous art as living knowledge and creates space for youth to imagine themselves as active carriers of culture in the present and into the future.

• Storytelling & Land-Based Learning
  Exploring Indigenous storytelling as an art form and reflecting on water as a living being, grounded in the community’s relationship to land and access to water.

• Creative Exploration Across Mediums
  Youth engaged with a range of artistic materials and approaches, encouraging experimentation, curiosity, and self-expression.

• Kichwa Futurisms
  Collective reflection on how Kichwa culture continues to evolve through contemporary creative expression.

• Intergenerational Exchange
  Creating space for shared learning between youth, elders, and artisans, centered on the transmission of knowledge across generations.

• Collective Art-Making
  A collaborative artwork that brought together skills, ideas, and relationships developed throughout the project.

Wiñaymuyu was designed as more than a one-time initiative. By involving local artists, elders, and organizers throughout the process, the project builds community capacity to continue similar workshops in the future.

The long-term vision is for Wiñaymuyu to serve as a replicable model that other Kichwa communities can adapt, supporting youth leadership, cultural preservation, and intergenerational exchange across territories.

Adina Farinango is a Kichwa Otavalo artist based in Lenapehoking (New York City). Her practice uses art as an act of resistance, healing, and self-expression, navigating and strengthening Indigenous identity within the Kichwa diaspora. Deeply influenced by the resilience and strength of Kichwa matriarchs—past, present, and future—her work centers the reclamation of space through a matriarchal lens.

Working across digital illustration, photography, embroidery, animation, and mixed media, Adina’s art is grounded in personal, ancestral, and collective memory. Her practice opens dialogue with ancestors across time while exploring what it means to carry home, culture, and identity across generations. Rooted in love and responsibility to community, her work celebrates Kichwa Futurisms—honoring Indigenous resilience while imagining vibrant, self-determined futures.

Adina is a Cultural Survival Indigenous Youth Fellow and has collaborated with Indigenous communities, organizations, and institutions including Kichwa Hatari, Brown University, NYU, Apple, Instagram, Bronx Arts, Photoville Festival, NYCDOT Art Beautification Program, and Indigenous Climate Action. Her work has been featured in exhibitions, public art initiatives, and cultural programs.