CURATED NEWS JULY 2025
Curated news is a bi-monthly newsletter showcasing ideas, initiatives and practices from around the world and here in Ritoma. Bringing insight, connection and nourishment.
I N S I G H T
Travel back in time with Mapping Babel, a Sixteenth-Century Indigenous Map from Mexico, created by an indigenous painter in Mexico to bring his world, a region named Cempoala, to life.
Consider Entangled Practices: Embodying cross-border live art, which gathers practitioners making visible the many ways we are connected and dependent on each other, our freedom held in each other’s hands – rooted in territories, struggles and ecologies where the dynamics of resistance, collaboration, and organising offer new possibilities for creative practice.
Attend The Blue Renaissance in New York, bringing together experts from across the conservation space to discuss the plastic pollution crisis, decoding the languages of our ocean relatives of the sea, and the many innovative solutions and community efforts to restore and protect marine environments.
Mapping Babel, and Blue Renaissance, set at the Frick Collection, will bring together artists, storytellers and climate leaders for a solution-focused program centred on ocean conservation.
C O N N E C T
Visit Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at MoMA, delving into the dynamic intersections between weaving and abstraction to challenge long-held notions of the weave as a function of textile alone, exploring the many forms both warp and weft have taken, and the overlap between abstract art, weaving, craft, and fashion.
Contemplate land, geography and the body in My Paths are Earthly, a major retrospective of the artist Marta Palau at the Museu Tàpies, weaving a dialogue of techniques and materials in dialogue with objects and materials from her personal archive, never previously exhibited.
Explore the life and works of Emily Kam Kngwarray, who created compelling, powerful works that reflect her extraordinary life as an Anmatyerr woman born in Alhalker in the Sandover region of the Northern Territory of Australia.
At different periods throughout her life, Marta Palau stated that “art is magic and freedom”. Her exhibition in Barcelona is based on a conceptual framework stemming from the dialogue between magic and history.
N O U R I S H
Listen to the Why We Care podcast, as Nemonte Nenquimo, Waorani leader, mother, and forest defender, shares what it was like for her to grow up in the heart of the Amazon, the teachings she received from her ancestors, and what she hopes the world will understand about the forest.
Get lost in the wisdom of indigenous seed steward, writer and activist Rowen White, and learn from her teachings on Indigenous seed and food sovereignty, reclaiming narratives and practicing radical imaginations by weaving stories of ancestral foods, culture, reciprocity and Earth stewardship.
Journey through NOUR, a poetry publication themed on ceremony, through conversation, poems and photo essays by friends and collaborators of artist Mustafa.
Emily Kam Kngwarray's pulsating and vibrant paintings are filled with colour, textures and symbolism. From a young age, Nemonte was inspired by the stories of her elders, learning about Waorani culture and their deep connection to the forest.
L O C A L N E W S
Laptse ~
June 9th, the 14th day of the 5th month of the Lunar calendar, is the first day of the great Zorgey Labtse festival, when men from all the clans gather to honor the local deities. Dressed in their finest clothes and carrying their family arrows, they ride their horses to pledge allegiance to the protective spirits, appealing for guidance and blessings of good fortune. Incense fills the air as thousands of little papers bearing the lungta, or wind horse—the carrier of good luck—are cast into the sky. The ceremony concludes with a spirited horse race.
Dukar Dolma ~
The second lunar month (mid-March) is critical for the nomads of the Tibetan Plateau, whose herds rely on timely rains after a harsh winter. During this important period, the monks of Ritoma visit each of the 220 village households to recite prayers to Dukar and Dolma, the two protective deities, invoking their help to remove obstacles and bring prosperity to people and livestock alike.
Nyungné ~
On May 29th, the 5th day of the 3rd month of the lunar calendar, many from Ritoma take part in the Nyungné practice, a two-day cycle of fasting, silence, and prostration. Known as Tsok Sum, it is performed to accumulate merit and purify negative karma.
