Peruvian Orchid Festival
- natallcan
- Mar 8
- 3 min read
The Orchid Festival at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, takes place every winter. This year, with the focus on Peru, I was given the chance to help a bit with the content and how we want to be seen as a diverse country in terms of complex geographies, biodiversity, cultures, languages, and peoples: aspects which I also explore and incorporate in my potato research. I had the wonderful opportunity to share my research as part of the Science Talks, presenting a poster about my work with Bitter Potatoes and displaying a large poster featuring a photograph I took during my expedition in the Andes in early 2024.
Among the things they asked us to inspire the exhibitions, I will develop one that I think is important and I haven't touched upon before here:
What misconceptions about Peru do you feel exist that we can try to address?
Peru is not simply a "mountain country" or "jungle country" but a nation of several diverse ecoregions.
The Inca weren't our only culture—many older civilizations flourished before them. In fact, Caral, the oldest culture in the Americas, originated in Peru.
We speak far more than just Spanish. Peru officially recognizes at least 48 languages.
"People don't have a culture because they didn't have a written language" is a harmful misconception. We passed our knowledge through art, rituals, songs, stories, textiles, pottery, and tools—cultural expressions that continue to thrive despite centuries of colonization and oppression.
Biological and cultural diversity meet in the Peruvian Orchid Festival.
We maintain a profound connection to plants and other natural beings. While potatoes may be considered "unassuming" or "humble" in other parts of the world, for us, they are sacred—brought to our ancestors by gods. The potato is a mother (Akshu mama/mama chuki in Quechua and Aymara) who nurtures and deserves our respect and care. Numerous rituals surround potato cultivation, harvesting, and processing. Similarly, coca is not cocaine. Historically and today, coca leaves are sacred and used in rituals, traditional festivities, blessings, and divination. We use coca leaves daily for working, studying, and sharing, creating bonds between people. They deserve profound respect.
Mariano Vivanco's Pachamama offering. 2. The iconic Andean bird cock-of-the-rock and a vicuña behind, depicted with recycled Kew's outdoor garden display.
In essence, Land-Kinned people developed these important crops through complex cultivation systems. This is evident not only in the archaeological record (in macro remains and objects) but also in contemporary local ethnobotanical knowledge, including farming practices, cultivation festivities, songs, and poetry.
My contributions
Science Talks
I also had the great chance to present my research on Bitter Potatoes in the Science Talks on February 14th. I drew on my experience sharing knowledges with the Andean communities and how their concerns inspired the hypotheses in my research to help them build resilience. I urged the general public to get involved in (citizen) science projects; people's involvement and their concerns can not only make science happen but also shape it. We can together tackle the pressing issues. Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo.
Poster presentation highlighting Bitter Potatoes
Between the first and second talks I delivered that day, I visited the exhibition and saw the Machu Picchu biodiversity display with pariwanas and vicuñas and, of course, several orchid species. After wandering through several sections, I stumbled upon familiar words and pictures—a poster featuring Bitter Potatoes.
Reflections
Being able to share my thoughts, experiences, and journey as a Quechua researcher at the festival and to represent the land and cultures I grew up in made me super proud. I wish to have more experiences like this to connect with the general public, who were engaged and asked relevant questions.
I connected so much with the public that I found myself dancing with South American aunties to chicha (tropical Andean cumbia) in the dry area of the Princess of Wales Conservatory. A sentence my first-year PhD student self never thought of writing back in 2018 when I first visited Kew.
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