The Buen-TEK Compendium is an editorial project developed in the framework of the S+T+ARTS Buen-TEK residency program, bringing together a plurality of voices, formats, and knowledge systems to document, share, and extend the learnings emerging from the program across South America, gathering more than 30 voices of artists, researchers, craftspeople, local community leaders, and cultural and scientific institution workers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Rooted in the Indigenous thought and Andean social and political movement of Buen Vivir—Sumak Kawsay and Suma Qamaña—the Compendium brings together a shared body of knowledge connected to this broad project ecosystem, presenting a distilled selection of content that synthesizes and reflects upon the processes and learnings, focusing on the practices, insights, and situated knowledge generated by the participants. 

The compendium is organized into three main sections. Ethics and Methodologies gathers the collective writing exercises and synchronized reflection developed by the twins—the South American host organizations—alongside their European counterparts: the ethical and methodological foundations from which the project operates, and how it positions itself in relation to territory, community, and knowledge. The Cookbook compiles techniques, technologies, tools, and ways of doing that have been tested, disputed, or revealed by the artists throughout their residencies, bridging indigenous, artistic, scientific, and ecological knowledge, and is designed to inspire experimentation within and beyond the project ecosystem. Collectively platforms the urgencies, demands, and claims of communities, alongside the strategies, manifestos, and prototypes developed in the program’s local workshops. 

A series of Essays explores these questions in greater depth, and a Bibliography brings together more than 130 references shared by members of the Buen-TEK community.

The Compendium functions as an open zine with a modular format across digital and physical environments. The content can be read online, saved and curated into personal collections, or downloaded, printed, and assembled into a self-made zine. This DIY approach reflects the principles of Lo-TEK and Buen Vivir by emphasizing accessibility, low technological dependency, local reproduction, and offline distribution within the communities and peer groups involved.