#1 Pakeliah Hol Hol 

by and with Hach Saye

Pakeliah is a peatland located in Tierra del Fuego, Chile, in the Karukinka park. The name was given by our community in a joint effort with the park rangers. Pakeliah Hol Hol means “Healing Peatland” (turbera que sana). As Selk’nam community we feel a special ancestral bond with this particular peatland. 

Hach Saye are a family foundation based in Tierra del Fuego, from one of the families who are part of the Covadonga Ona Selk’nam Community. Since 2021, as an organization we are working to strengthen our culture. To achieve that, our community needs to be capable of expressing ourselves in our language (Selk’nam Chan) and have a good comprehension of our past and actual history. Our goal is to deepen our bonds with the island (Isla Grande, Tierra del Fuego) as we discovered in the process that we can better understand our culture and language by taking care of the environment. Therefore everything we do is based in a deep search for a connection and protection. Another goal of our work is to create and share knowledge for the communities surrounding us, so they can slowly start to understand us, our culture and land, leaving behind the commercial knowledge that they might have. We work with Pakeliah Hol Hol to raise awareness about it and create its protection. 

For our Peatland Cosmologies project with Sensing Peat and The Venice Agreement we will create transgenerational activities to empower our connection with the Pakeliah peatland. Together with a visual artist, a writer/poet and a photographer (Camila Santibáñez, Hema’ny Molina and  Fernanda Olivares) from our community, researchers and scientists active in Karukinka park and in collaboration with cultural institutions which hold collections from our ancestral culture, we will organise a series of community arts formats and ceremonies at Pakeliah Hol Hol between February and March 2025. These will generate different kinds of audio-visual material, including videos, graphics, songs (chants), images and paintings which will be used to make an online publication in May 2025 and be used on social media.