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educational pavilion​

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The Educational Pavilion is located in the heart of Oaxaca, Mexico within the walls of the Church and former monastery of Santo Domingo de Guzman (constructed 1572-1666) – now the Botanical Gardens of Santo Domingo. Mexican Artists Francisco Toledo and Luis Zarate and the Anthropologist and Biologist, Alejandro de Ávila began creating the cultural ensemble that would become the Botanical Gardens of Santo Domingo in the summer of 1994. In 2004, they began contemplating a greenhouse that could support the growth of those species unable to survive in Oaxaca’s extreme climate. This diversity was essential to them. They wanted plants that would showcase the ecology from different regions of the state of Oaxaca. The purpose of this showcase would not merely

be to collect a range of species, but to show how this range of species functioned for the people who lived on the land over the course of several thousand years. In doing so, they hoped to show how the diversity of languages and cultures within the state corresponded to the diversity of plant life and how those plants were used to sustain and enrich human life. This would allow them to create an environment where people could understand how these elements were used for food, firewood, fibers, medicine, condiments, and dyes. Moreover, it would allow people to understand how they have served as aesthetic inspiration, appearing in textile patterns, tiles, and architectural motifs over the course of several thousand years. In this sense, the reason they chose to call the garden “ethnobotanical” was because each element had a cultural meaning. IMAGES BY RAFAEL GAMO