The Potato as a Hub of Socio-Ecological Relationships

Since early 2026, Fiorella Angelini and Ignacio Serrano, artists and members of the art and learning teams at FMA, have been leading a biomaterial research project—materials derived from biological processes or organisms—as an alternative for use in mediation and museography. Their starting point is potato starch and its varieties in the Andean Araucanía. May marks International Potato Day, an occasion to share a conversation with three advisors to this exploration—designer Carolina Pacheco, ecologist Tomás Ibarra, and the Foundation’s intercultural advisor Ana Millaqueo—about how this food concentrates networks of ecological, cultural, and historical relationships that redefine how we inhabit and produce.

The materialities used in mediation and museography within artistic contexts, as well as supports for conservation, such as herbaria, are approached critically by artists Fiorella Angelini and Ignacio Serrano ––coordinators of mediation and museography/publications at FMA, respectively––, who lead research on the development of biomaterials from potato starch and its extraction, as well as local varieties (1). We conduct these investigations in Santiago and Pucón, territories where we work, linked to the territorial context of our natural reserve, Bosque Pehuén, located in the Andean Araucanía.

As part of our explorations and processes aimed at establishing ethical practices aligned with nature care, we invited three advisors to reflect—specialists in areas as diverse as socioecology, design, and Mapuche cultural relevance: Tomás Ibarra, Carolina Pacheco, and Ana Millaqueo—who propose that each biomaterial involves a network of relationships. In this interview, the three address the transdisciplinary relevance, community ties, and narratives that show how the potato—in its traditional uses and potential as a biomaterial—exhibits an agglutinating character, not only in physical terms but in bringing together practices of material and food sovereignty (2).

Fundación Mar Adentro (FMA): Researching through biomaterials allows us to reflect on ethical issues around the collection of raw materials. What reflections emerge from your own practices about collection and creation in this sense?

Carolina Pacheco (CP): Arriving at ethical positions based on practice has been a long journey. I studied design, a broad discipline. I explored textile, graphic, fashion, and industrial areas, and at the end of my studies I encountered biomaterials in a course that collaborated with biology. I realized I could intervene or use materials as the source of my work, and I was fascinated.

My first encounter was from a scientific angle, understanding what things are made of and observing knowledge from millions of years translated into the properties of nature or the intelligence of species: animals that secrete substances to survive or create methods to generate food. From 2017 onwards, I began to observe these relationships, that chemistry occurring without our awareness, and how to replicate it—making visible the intrinsic relationships of materiality, geological times, physical processes.

Design is a way of communicating, and that’s where we arrive at the ethical dimension, because a material doesn’t exist by itself; rather, it is linked to realities that account for, for example, processes of exploitation. Working with biomaterials stimulates a holistic approach to traceability that seeks to know where something comes from physically, what commercial processes it undergoes, and what narratives connect territories and their inhabitants.

Ana Millaqueo (AM): The question touches a sensitive point from the perspective of conscious collection, because while we may be willing to have research and evaluations of materials that are also a typical food, the question of quantity always arises. We need certainty that extraction won’t grow to large levels. An example of how we Mapuche see this appears in the fact that when someone extracts more pine nuts than they need, they rot. Nature has its way of teaching you what is just.

Tomás Ibarra (TI): As researchers, we are addressing concepts and practices that involve investigating, acting, and inhabiting—concepts that can be ethically ambiguous. We do extensive collection work in educational spaces, with communities, in forests, with birds, around non-timber forest products like seeds and fruits. In many cases, the fact of inhabiting the research site involves action linked to aspects of education and public policy at a non-institutional level. We are developing activities that are not necessarily research.

Conducting research requires methodologies and protocols anchored in very clear ethics to know whether people want to be part of it, understanding that they are free agents to participate, for example. Regarding biomaterials, we are addressing socio-ecological reciprocities, expanding towards a technomaterial dimension, not purely the physical. The ethical dimension is permanent because we are conducting continuous ethnography (3).

 

FMA: Tomás, could you elaborate on how this technomaterial dimension links with the socio-ecological?

TI: It happens that, as a way to address the socio-environmental crisis, the theoretical and practical framework of ecosystem services (4) has been proposed, which are very one-directional regarding the benefits humans obtain. This perspective came in the 90s from the Earth Summit in Rio, from environmental sciences and economics, within a context of rapid economic growth. While this has been a successful perspective in developing frameworks, it is criticized because nature not only provides goods; historically, people have delivered benefits to nature in a dialectical relationship.

Researchers like Jaime Ojeda and various academics called in 2022 to think about reciprocal contributions. This has developed more theoretically than practically or politically, so in that framework we made a research proposal to an internal fund (5) and discussed socio-ecological reciprocity from symbolic-linguistic or political dimensions operating at various scales.

FMA: The research proposes a biocultural perspective situated in the Andean Araucanía. How does that territorial dimension—which includes memory, practices, and relationships—translate into concrete approaches: material, methodological, or experiential? Or put another way, what should be considered given the territorial context?

AM: The potato is everywhere. When harvesting it—whether to eat or extract starch—you must keep in mind the cardinal directions, where to position yourself to make an offering and ask permission. Some foods are found in specific sectors, but the potato is universal. From the Mapuche perspective in the territory, we could situate ourselves in the constellation Ngaw Poñü (pile of potatoes) which, as the ancients recount, looks like a sack with little stars inside. Before planting potato seeds, they must be left in a sack exposed to the night sky so they receive energy from the constellation and the moon. How the sack appears at dawn carries a message about how the harvest will come. These narratives and connections between sky and Earth cannot be taken lightly; they must be respected and honored. Another association that comes to mind is ground potatoes or topinambur in the area. It is said they were discovered as edible in the 70s, during dictatorship, when there was much hunger, so this potato represents many sad memories and notions of food sovereignty in difficult times.

CP: The local gives meaning to work with certain materials, whether in the Araucanía or any territory. In my case, from the Calcáreo project (6) I always worked with marine derivatives. It’s interesting to see how projects have a territorial link with their origins. We organized artist residencies using algae and ground mollusk shells from the south, seeking to understand ecosystems, where the material comes from, what human and other-species relationships are mobilized, and how it’s extracted and processed; we had to map that process and consider details about tools to use. My approach is open and replicable technology; so when you approach a marine farm, it’s important to also speak with those who live from the sea. These variables extrapolate to any territory, thinking about how materials shape traditions, economic activities, and their weight: there is constant reflection on those relationships centered on questions like how much water and energy I’m using; how the impact of raw materials translates; the compounds; the design and applications, hoping there exists a final use that gives meaning to the cycle.

TI: We have published work suggesting steps for transdisciplinarity. It would be interesting to pay attention to aspects related to participation that are really relevant, because biocultural memory has a predominantly inter and transdisciplinary approach, where the methodological focus connects to working with communities that carry out participation and materialization practices. These two elements are like yin and yang, a duality and complement. To do any work where biomaterial inquiry fits, we need to foster participation spaces where aspects like feeling part of a community and interacting with others emerge. And regarding materializing, it doesn’t necessarily need to be tangible, but for example, a sculpture, a field guide, a book, a documentary. Something that remembers that participation happened. Memory museums, for example, recall that something occurred, so our approach speaks to memory and requires methodologies that cultivate it.

FMA: The research identifies the potato as an agglutinating element among practices like horticulture, cooking, or composting. What does it suggest to you to think of such a specific material—like potato starch—as a node of social, cultural, and ecological relationships?

AM: We must situate starch in relation to the fact that the potato has always been greatly valued simply for being a food—and not just any food, because it was a historical exchange between Spanish and Inca, for example, so it has a historical nutritional root. It also has a dimension of food sovereignty. We need to research how ancestors did it to prevent pests like beetles, aphids, or sawflies from attacking (7). They added ash to plantations and fewer pests arrived. Today they abound, perhaps due to seed intervention.

Planting something and being able to eat it always brings joy. I see my father when he harvests potatoes, proud of eating what he planted. Also thinking about the size of potatoes tied to their territory, because in lafkenche zones—sea people—they grow much larger. I think mostly about stories about the potato. My grandmother told me that when she was young, she worked on a farm where a woman grew Chilote potatoes. One day she asked for seeds and the woman said no, but instead she took home the peels after preparing a meal, planted them, and the potatoes grew. It’s a very loving food, you could say.

CP: I find it fascinating to bring together different fields in one biomaterial. A material cannot be understood from a technical sheet alone. Research like this makes visible multiple relationships: the kitchen, chemistry, science—nodes that can help us empathize with others’ daily lives. Seeing how matter transforms and knowing its properties invites us to rethink how we relate. The material can be understood as a narrator and chuño or starch is highly fragmented, but it marks its ties to practices and actors related to the potato.

TI: In my research I’m focusing on Chilote potatoes and, through mapping and interviews, we’ve realized it’s a critically relevant articulator, more social than environmental even, in terms of reciprocity between people versus people and nature—it operates at both levels but is very important for human ties. We’re also working with berries, nursery operations, plants, other Bosquentrama projects.

FMA: One of the inquiry’s aims is to socialize nature care through mediation and exhibitions. What kinds of experiences do you think are needed today to stimulate connections in this sense, through these practices?

AM: If someone doesn’t make an offering before planting or harvesting, things won’t go well. You must consider the lunar calendar and know what and when to plant. My grandmother told me that in May you had to plant beans and peas to make a pork stew for We tripantü—Mapuche New Year——and I don’t know how they did it because those are freezing seasons and yet the seeds germinated. I’ve been able to verify that it’s necessary to know and build ties with places. If that doesn’t exist, it’s very difficult to do it from an intellectual standpoint. Beyond building environmental awareness, we need cultural awareness: many people don’t care and leave waste. I wonder how people can have more respect. Starting from knowledge of stories, the origins of potatoes, for example, making them protagonists. Knowing what kinds of potatoes have been planted, how exchanges have historically been carried out.

TI: Just as with potato diversity, we need to think about diversifying communication and mediation forms: documentaries, workshops, medicinal aspects, collecting stories, reflecting on identity, holding conversations. I remembered that here—in Villarrica—on the coast, there’s a project about bamboo and colihue: they’re making a dome from these materials and that’s also an approach. We need transformative spaces.

CP: My experience with algae has shown me how to work with various generations that harvest resources sustaining their lives, like seaweed gatherers. Getting people who’ve spent years interacting with the same material to see there are derivatives like agar-agar or carrageenan (8), and getting emotional about the transformations or derivatives that could even replace plastic, is very valuable. Through these practices, empathy is built.

FMA: And what experiences have been important for these material transformations to be appreciated?

CP: In 2017, for example, this was something really new—perhaps known at the industrial level or from European explorations, but Latin American references emerged beyond academia. A milestone marking this growth was a 2024 exhibition called Matter of south in Berlin. An inventory was made of what was happening in the region and what defines biomaterials here. It was concluded that in Latin America it’s more relevant to demonstrate human relationships and give meaning to practice because we have a deeper connection with our surroundings versus other countries.

Currently I’m working in London at NotPla, aiming to end single-use plastics, on the innovation team as a designer and researcher. I wanted to come to another country to see how biomaterials are approached and while here the priority is production, the cause is very relevant. It’s been impressive to see, alongside this search, how in 10 years universities began offering biomaterials courses, and it has permeated the field.

FMA: I’d also like to ask something specifically of Tomás and then Ana. Tomás, in your work you’ve addressed nature as a temporal assemblage, where memory and rhythms are key. How does that temporal lens dialogue with a material like the potato—and its derivatives—in that it concentrates various socio-ecological cycles?

TI: In a presentation I prepared for the Reino Fungi Festival in Pucón, I addressed the evolutionary dimension of memory. The potato has its center of origin in Chiloé. Before there were records of a thousand varieties; today surely around 400 but fewer must be cultivated. The potato is a Solanaceae (9) with long evolution in the Americas and multiple ties with humans. It’s a long history that evolved in southern territories; then came domestication where new varieties were created, selecting functional traits, biocultural ones, and that carries historical connotation. The Chiloé archipelago remained administered by Spanish for a long time, a place with imprints of canoeists and Huilliche presence. All those variables are told in the Potato Museum. There’s an evolutionary connotation that is also ecological. Besides, varieties have been introduced, and this has consequences of landscape homogenization that in turn affect ecological assemblies. The memory of the potato also sits in an identity, symbolic, linguistic, and traditional dimension. If there’s no potato for lunch, some Chilotes don’t eat—it’s very important over time.

FMA: And finally, Ana—how can biomaterial work dialogue with knowledge transmission in Mapuche culture? And what other practices do you think could be associated with biomaterials in the Araucanía?

AM: Nearly all peels are raw material for dyeing—onions, nalca, beets, roots, pine nuts. It’s a world that can open to what the West calls biomaterial exploration. About knowledge transmission, in instances associated with contextualizing biomaterials—and in all kinds of instances—the chalin (greeting) will always matter, saying where you come from, how you connect with the land, something that sums up the interest in being there. I also feel we should start by putting other names. For instance, if we speak of yafutun (to feed oneself)—iia is force and fu is something unbreakable with hands (10)—that would be a good way to understand the value of the potato and its starch, or chuño. Learning has to do with emotion and the senses, and how to connect children with it. On the other hand, chuño has always been a lawen (medicine), because if someone had stomach upset, grandmother would grate the potato and give the juice. An immediate first-aid kit. In the countryside, life happens in the kitchen. Biomaterials as a concept are very unknown in rural vocabulary. This is an opportunity to give different value to raw materials for schoolchildren. Kids know things they’re not aware of. They should be told that their knowledge based on customs has value, and how the teacher connects with what students live in their homes is key to improving self-perception and building ties of care with life.

Endnotes:

1. The artists seek to create bio-sheets and objects with local waste. This work continues experiments around integrating biomaterials in mediation and exhibitions at FMA. Along with upcoming publications—including a methodological guide—and workshops, they aim to socialize the research with open-source logic to promote material sovereignty, sustainable composting, and local transfer. In fact, as part of the Reino Fungi 2026 Festival in Pucón, they facilitated the Create from Waste: Sustained Composting with Biomaterial workshop, a practical session on their research progress where participants created their own sculptures combining chuño with household waste, ash, and sawdust.
2. The potato functions as a technical, cultural, and economic node allowing communities to control seeds, transformation processes (for example, chuño or starch extraction) and material uses (bio-sheets, binders), guaranteeing production autonomy, reproduction of traditional knowledge, and benefit circulation in the territory. This approach combines the definition of food sovereignty—the right of peoples to decide their food systems—with the idea of material sovereignty, emphasizing traceability, technological appropriation, and ethical practices of extraction and use of local materials.
3. Method and product of qualitative research centered on detailed study of practices, beliefs, relationships, and experiences of a social group in their everyday context.
4. This concept refers to nature’s capacity to deliver material and immaterial benefits to people, and advocates for better understanding of ecosystem value for human well-being, making visible the link between ecosystem structure and processes and how that link generates changes in people’s well-being [Link to citation].
5. From UC. With Jaime Ojeda, Carla Marchant and Gonzalo Salazar.
6. The project studies the possibility of designing new manufacturing processes in design based on bioreference of calcareous organisms from the marine ecosystem.
7. The Epicauta pilme is a beetle with elongated body, matte black color and reddish legs that affects various crops; while the aphid or Aphidoidea are tiny insects that extract sap causing deformations, chlorosis, and weakening. The sawfly or Caliroa cerasi feeds on crops from its larval stage.
8. Agar-agar is a natural gelling agent of plant origin extracted from red algae. Carrageenan is a natural additive, also from red algae, that functions as a thickener, stabilizer, and gelling agent.
9. Solanaceae are a plant family (Solanaceae) that includes fundamental and widely consumed foods, such as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.
10. Phonemes.

About the interviewees:

Tomás Ibarra

Agronomist with an M.Sc. in Wildlife Conservation and Management (UC). M.Sc. in Environmental Anthropology (U. Kent, UK). Ph.D. in Forest Sciences (U. British Columbia). He develops collaborative and transdisciplinary research in science, education, and socio-ecological action in forests, mountains, and agroforestry systems. Associate Professor at Campus Villarrica and at the Faculty of Agronomy, UC. Researcher at CHIC, CEDEL, CIIR, and CAPES. Founder of Bosquentrama.

Ana Millaqueo

She is an intercultural bilingual teacher (U. Los Lagos) and holds a diploma in Children’s Literature and Reading Development (UAH). Currently, she works as an intercultural advisor at FMA where she promotes Mapuche culture and territorial relevance, teaching workshops and training sessions on her people’s worldview, joining various programs and projects of the foundation.

Carolina Pacheco

She is an integral designer (UC). Her Calcáreo project is a space for dissemination and transfer of materials derived from brown algae and shellfish residues, and throughout her career has been an academic and advisor to various initiatives and projects promoting access and critical perspective in working with biomaterials in design. She currently works in London at NotPla, aiming to end single-use plastics, on the innovation team as a designer and researcher.