The collective Intikuren focuses on links between ancestral Andean knowledge and food traditions. On the second day of the Convening on Rematriations, Reparations, and Restitutions, Intikuren nurtures human, corporeal, collective, and spiritual bodies, stimulating their interconnections. Their performative food offering draws on different forms of healing practices from a continuum of knowledge in the Andes.

Intikuren’s menu symbolizes the transfer of ancestral knowledge about plants. Their offering opens with a collective ritual of drinking chanca piedra, a refreshing herbal tea with mild earthy and slightly bitter notes, known for its detoxifying and kidney-health-supporting effects; caldo verde, a nourishing soup with potatoes and a blend of native herbs like muña, payco, ruda, and huacatay, of earthy-fresh flavours and gentle warmth; and tocosh pudding, a mildly tangy fermented delicacy, traditionally prized for its probiotic and immune-boosting benefits.

The second part of the menu is inspired by the knowledge of the Chakana, a ubiquitous diagram in the form of a stepped cross that has been used in the Andes for over 4,000 years. Found in Caral, the oldest civilization in Abya Yala (the Americas), the Chakana is alleged in current local culture to be the Southern Cross constellation, the most important point of navigation in the South Hemisphere. It serves as an organizational philosophy and calendar for agricultural purposes and festivities demarcating yearly phases, and to keep the spatio-temporal realms of the Pacha (place/reality) in their inseparable and productive balance. Intikuren presents the practice of binding the worlds represented in the Chakana, as it contains Indigenous values of interconnectedness, reciprocity, collaboration, integrality, and harmony.