Nick Ballón

Personal
1 of 29
29 images

El Choro is a Quechua community of around 400 people, situated three to four hours drive into the mountains above Cochabamba city in Bolivia. The people of this village are reviving their indigenous culture and traditions, and reclaiming their food sovereignty in the process. I visited the community as part of ‘We Feed the World’, a global photography project culminating in an exhibition and publication that celebrates small family farmers and their success in feeding 70% of the world. Invited by curator Cheryl Newman, I joined 40 other photographers documenting the life of sustainable farming families across six continents. El Choro has succeeded in becoming self-sufficient, recuperating at least 100 varieties of potatoes, many types of quinoa, maize and various other crops. Such crops had previously been banned by the Catholic Church under colonial rule. The village now lives by the Quechuan philosophy of sumak kawsay, a cosmovision that emphasises the interconnectedness of everything and which advocates for a life of harmony, balance and dignity.