Ixchel Tonāntzin Xōchitlzihuatl
Ixchel (she/ we/ they) is a peace and culture strategist. They are formally trained and work as a practicing visual artist. They also are trained and practice as a coach in somatics, mindfulness, arts and community-based research and group facilitation. They are the founder and director of the peace and culture organization Xi’im Ek Balam. Additionally they are a widely published author, former professor of art and regular panelist at summits in arts, creative placemaking and community development.
They support people in remembering, serving and reconnecting to their first mother, the earth. Ixchel is committed to contributing to the co-evolution of the human species towards peaceful, sustainable futures. Their techniques include design justice, socially engaged art, emergent strategy, mindfulness, somatics, indigenous wisdom, and community decolonization.
Ixchel trains, collaborates and has studied with indigenous communities throughout the Abayala (Maiza/ the Americas) including the Kichwa (linage of the Gualinga family), Waorani and Shwaur in the upper Ecuadorian Amazon, the Maya Kiche (lineage of Paula Yus), the Wixrarika (linage of Marakame Silvestre Castro) and beginning Nahuatl student (Cuitlahuac Arreola Martinez). Her projects focus on eco-social acupuncture (collaborating with indigenous leaders who steward sacred sites).
Ixchel holds an MFA from Colombia University, School of the Arts, and an Ed.M from Harvard University School of Education. While studying at Harvard, they also took classes at the M.I.T. Media Lab. Ixchel is also trained in BDSM (forthcoming), sex, and intimacy (Somatica Institute), and Buddhist liberation practice and philosophy (Kopan Monastery, Braided Wisdom).
Ixchel is mixed indigenous (primarily Uto-Aztecan/ Uto-Nahuatl), mixed race (primarily Celt), two spirit woman and queer being. They are a 2023 Soros Art, Land and Memory Fellow, a Sozo Fellow (2024), a co-fellow grantee for United States Artists (2020), and Blade of Grass Fellow (2018). Their writing has been published by Grant Makers in the Arts, NonProfit Quarterly, Shelterforce and the Ford Foundation's Creative Futures program. Ixchel is rematriating land to build an intertribal peace center (called Land Back As Art by curator Amy Rosenbaum Martín) in the Ecuadorian Amazon with the Waorani, Kichwa and Shuar tribes. Their forthcoming film, in collaboration with the artist AnAkA, will screen at the Stellenbosch Bioscope (South Africa) and United Nations Climate Change Conference (Brazil) in 2025.May her work be pleasing to all those who have come before working towards liberation and earth stewardship. May all beings feel peace. May all beings feel nourished. May all beings know rest. May all beings be healthy. May all beings remember their nature of oneness and shine brightly with light of one thousand and one suns.