Todos Santos - COMMUNITY PROJECT

Candelaria is one of the eight villages that form the Subcentralía Candelaria, which in turn is part of the Cantón Icla, Provincia de Saavedra, Departamento de Chuquisaca in the southern Andes of Bolivia.
At the time we filmed the documentary, Candelaria’s population was about four hundred people.

Since colonial times the inhabitants of what later became the Subsentralía Canderaria were part of the workforce of a large hacienda. What is left of the hacienda, after agrarian reforms and community upheavals, still remains behind tall adobe walls on the outskirts of the village and currently serves as a tourist hotel.

The people of Candelaria are farmers and keepers of livestock, and the women of the community are renowned as some of the best weavers in Bolivia.
In 2006, the community of Candelaria worked closely with Alisa Woofter, a Peace Corps volunteer, to form Unay Pallay Weavers Cooperative and build the Unay Pallay Weavers Cooperative’s Community Museum.
Unay Pallay Weavers Cooperative´s mission is to provide economic opportunities for the traditional weavers of the community.
The small Museum features the beautiful weavings and tapestries created by the members of the Cooperative, along with cultural artifacts and information about daily life and the traditions of the community.

Metamorfosis Documentation Project, in collaboration with the Cooperative and as part of the Todos Santos Project, created a multi-media permanent installation of the Feast of Todos Santos in the Museum.
Besides helping to bring electricity into the building, MDP provided the Cooperative with equipment to show the documentary to the visitors of the Museum and installed photographs taken during the preparations and celebrations of Todos Santos. Two hundred copies of the documentary were also donated along with rights to reproduce and sell it, with proceeds to benefit the Museum. After the inauguration of the Todos Santos Exhibit, the world premiere of the documentary was presented in the community’s Event Hall.