The Condor & The Bull

The Condor & The Bull is a long-term documentary project exploring how the Indigenous Quechua culture in the Andes navigates the tension between ancestral tradition and the forces of modern change — globalization, resource extraction, urbanization, and climate upheaval. Named for the Yawar Fiesta, a ritual binding a sacred condor to a bull imposed by Spanish colonizers, the project traces that same tension between the Indigenous and the imposed as it plays out today: through mining pressures on sacred land, the erosion and adaptation of ritual, and the friction between state authority and Indigenous self-determination. Built on years of immersive work rather than access, it documents rituals of the sacred, the challenges and tensions between cultures, and daily life. Resisting simple narratives of loss or resilience, the work instead captures a people actively negotiating what it means to remain Quechua amid enormous external pressure.