news : fernando garcía-dory

Wind-Dinning , a comission for Art Maebashi Museum, Maebashi, Japan
18 November - 4 December 2013
Invited artist Fernando García-Dory will focus on the agrarian question in Japan and Maebashi area in face of upcoming neo-liberal trade agreements. Activating a program of talks and actions based in existing working lines of Arts Maebashi, proposes a temporary "re-hydrating restaurant" for intergeneration mutual support, reviving local traditional crafts and culinary arts and to evoke alternative models of development in transition to sustainability,
Conversations with gardeners, farmers, and different local actors will serve as research basis on local drying food and preservation techniques, related with native seasonal dry winds, named karakazu . Workshops and lectures will be organised , bringing together a broad overview about global agricultural systems, different agri-food models, neo-liberal farming policies and food sovereignity, involving local farmers and households also as to guide and prepare the recipes that will conform Wind Dinning menu.
Paralell to it , an invitation to Mebashi young creatives , artists and designers is launched to work with silk craftmen in the design of the visual identity of Wind Dinning restaurant. Rethinking ancient silk works , new materials will be tested to decorate the place, mats , napkins, menus etc
The restaurant will be open to Maebashi citizens, where they can see workshop participants presenting their design works, some concluding farming perspectives and the global context, and live interview some farmer-teacher about the recipes served.

Thanks to Fumihiko Sumitomo, Rie Okada, Arts Maebashi and AC/E - Spanish Cultural Action Agency

Action-installation at , Tenderpixel Gallery, London
14 - 17 October 2013

During Frieze London, three artists ( Fernando García-Dory, Toril Johannessen, Fiona Shaw) intervene in the gallery space under the title "Are we conditioned to demand progress and resolution?"
(Describing, quantifying, or criticizing the impact of social structures on the self can appear as an attempt either to compose a story or offer solutions. In this series, we test our default acquiescence to this state of understanding.)
More info here
Thank you Joseph Liam , Borbala Soos.

6th Session of the Inland Study Group: on Ecologies of the Art System,Territory and New Landscapes on Contemporary Culture. Matadero Madrid
14th September 2013
Invited guest speakers : Landings collective, Vivian Ziherl and Natasha Ginwala.

Athens Biennale, bringing there Department of Islands, Aegean chapter of introduction
29 September to November 2013

For the Biennale titled "AGORA" , García-Dory presents recent developments in the Department of Islands he started to work in in 2009. This long-term intervention project focuses on Pacific, Caribbean and Mediterranean islands as semi-enclosed ecosystems that stage the classic neo-liberal drama in which local economies succumb to the promissory spectacle of worldly paradise. It ranges from promoting an Elemental Crafts School in Mallorca to the reconstruction of Dream-Farm system in Fiji. The Department proposes in this occasion - based in an on-going collaboration with A Whale members - that some distant Greek islands could be taken not only as periphery of the periphery or potential objects for sale, but also as sites for a revived utopianism based in local heritage with its mix of modernist architecture, agriculture, crafts and seasonal rites. The project links the Aegean Sea islands current research stage to Athens through different elements including an installation and public talk, with Tania Bruguera, collaborators and the head of the commons from Kytheras island.
Thanks to Whale’s architects / Iris and Leda Lykourioti / Valentina Karga, Stephanie Smith and Viviana Cecchia.

The Politics and Pleasures of Food, HALLE 14, Leipzig, Germany

21 September 2013

For this first part of the show, that will continue in March in Weimar I present the first page of the script for Sonnenblumen Lied: A drama in a staged periurban farm-school, exactly in Rudow, outskirts of Berlin. The text, later filmed in video, draws affective dynamics and conflicts amongst the stuff of the idyllic bio-Höf, at certain point revealing dark human depths. It is marked by the pass of the season and cultivation cycles, and the hysterical visits of school children and the eco-integrity requirements of the place.
Thank you Frank Motz

Art comission for Haein natural park and Buddhist heritage monastery, South Korea

15 - 29 September 2013

Engaging in performing a series of activities to become habit acompassed with the monks - after morning prayings, walks to the mountains, collection of plants and ink- drawings and conversations - the artist gives life to the temporary construction he built. It functions as herbarium and pharmacy of natural plants, and also as a learning and meeting site for local inhabitants and visitors. Made of found materials gathered at the surroundings and assembled in a semi-circular domed shape, the herbarium houses plants, seeds and remedies, collected and preserved through a series of public sessions discussing the characteristics of the various species of plant life present and their everyday uses as a point of departure to listen from local farmers from the closest villages and monastery monks, recounting stories, and allowing us to enter in their everyday practices, concerns, visions and knowledge acquired.. Essence-Function initiates a dialogue of knowledge between western scientific botanic classification and eastern spiritual doctrines, where both are challenged to develop a system to be transmitted.
Thank you Leandre D´Souza, Margaux André, Haeinsa monks community and all ENA team

5th Session of the Inland Study Group: on Ecologies of the Art System,Territory and New Landscapes on Contemporary Culture. Matadero Madrid
14th September 2013

With guest speaker Alina Popa, we will discuss these questions while bringing up the affect of horror and fear as central to acquiring a different knowledge of an “outside”, of a radical alterity that can be found even inside or in the familiar. We will further problematize together the banality of horror, unspectacular cannibalisms and performative strategies related to an ambiguous self and a deceptive body such as parasitism and camouflage, "playing the position" (Serres) while enhancing the contents.

Alina Popa is currently involved in projects like The Bureau of Melodramatic Research, Biosorcery, Presidential Candidacy, Bezna zine, Robin Hood Fund. As part of BMR, she is currently problematizing the affective modulations of politics, the emotional performance of labour and the current normative neuro-choreographies. She is also interested in less spectacular forms of cannibalism and feeding as a classificatory act, in the concept of alteration that could replace what we now call "alternative", taking into account both a constant production of oneself as the other and unhuman forms of cooking like processes of regress and decomposition.

Lisbonne Triennale
11-13 September 2013

“All the emperor´s new clothes” is a performative speech that questions the shape of social interaction from the perspective of the power figure
“A whisper and a thunder, equally, signify space. Once, walking through a forest, a colourful, vivid birdsong moved me, just to discover is my friends cell phone´s ring tone. And nevertheless, a landscape is created, transformed”. Distilling from the concepts of “collaborative”, “participatory” or “relational”, and other hidden choreographies, Fernando Garcia-Dory explores in his piece for this Triennial “All the emperor´s new clothes” the driving agency in social formations. Taking from groups psychology to the effects of different types of throat-singing and sociology of the leader studies, questions how social matter manifests, and which factors influence and cause friction between the multiplicity and the singular voice, speaker and audience, whatever political claim it contents.
Thank you Jose Esparza, Natalia Cerqueira, Sofia Baptista and all triennale team
Read more here

Navigating Ecological Times, Whitechapel Gallery, London

30 August 2013

With artists Tamás Kaszás (H), Lise Autogena (DK/UK) and Fernando Garcia-Dory (SP)and curators Maja and Reuben Fowkes (Translocal).

More info here

Floating gardens, agoras and other places for Practices for Everyday Life. IASPIS Stockholm

22 July 4-7.30 pm

The occasion will be an opportunity to continue to reflect on some of the questions that were raised during the seminar, such as the role of art and the function of the artist in attempts at challenging the ways we relate to each other and our environment.
Stephanie Smith´s research over the past few years has focused on socially engaged public art practice, which has prompted the question of how to best support such practices from inside the museum, and more specifically at the Smart Museum of Chicago, which she directs. A key question for both Fernando Garcia Dory and Stephanie Smith is how artistic practices that, either through specific functional applications to daily life, or by representing particular positions, propose visions that contain the possibility of other political and economical structures, and how all this happens in relation to the institution. More specifically, at a time when the financial crisis in Greece and elsewhere is multiplying its manifestations, both the curator and the artist find themselves involved in the upcoming 4th Athens Biennale 2013 and cannot but respond to this bleak situation through a pertinent question: Now what?
There also be an intervention by Kultivator, an arts collective based on the island of Öland, together with Richard Saxton, head of the arts organisation M12 from Colorado, USA, and editor of the forthcoming book A Decade of Country Hits: Art on the Rural Frontier.
More info here

4th Session of the Inland Study Group: on Ecologies of the Art System,Territory and New Landscapes on Contemporary Culture. Matadero Madrid

12-14 June

Guest speaker, Amy Franceschini - FutureFarmers. Visit to the self-managed sheep and goat raising cooperative Los Apisquillos in Madrid´s mountains range.

On the Aesthetics and Politics of Worlding, conference at Frankfurt, Goethe-Universität / Institut für Philosophie

4th July

Guest Professor Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev organises the Seminar "Worlding: Research in Art as a practice of intra-action and multispecies co-evolution" to explore how it is possible to think about art from the perspective of the “worldly” as opposed to the “humanistic”. The seminar is intended as the first of a series of three yearly seminars. It is an interdisciplinary seminar for students of the Department of Philosophy as well as from adjacent disciplines like art theory and history, literary, cultural, film and media studies.

Paradoxically, humanistic positions are the cause of our having become less humane, and less compassionate beings on the planet. Precisely in the age of the so-called Anthropocene, where the destiny of the planet depends on the choices and actions of one species, the human, this seminar is a research project that analyses and breaks away from the “human exceptionalism” which has characterized most religious monotheistic thinking as well as traditional lay philosophy up to its recent radical questioning by thinkers such as biologist, feminist and cultural theorist Donna Haraway , ethologist and philosopher Vinciane Despret or Jacques Derrida who, in his lecture of 1997, “L’Animal que donc je suis (a’ suivre)”, questions his own philosophical tradition in which the non-human animal has always been a figure of radical otherness.
This perspective towards a de-anthropocentrization of thought and a multispecies co-evolution of intra-actions and interactions proposes to move away from the binary oppositions between the human and the so-called ‘natural’ (the organic ‘other’ being part of that sphere – the slave, the non-citizen, the woman, the embryo, the ethnic other, the so-called ‘animal’, the so-called ‘vegetal’), as well as between the human and the machinic (the inorganic ‘other’), the technological).

This seminar will explore these topics through an analysis of some artworks that were developed during dOCUMENTA (13) (Kassel, Kabul, Banf, Cairo/Alexandria, 2012), through readings and discussions and research towards understanding the questions that may inform a worldly knowledge which is only just beginning.

Thank you to Carolyn Christov-Bakagiev, Kristina Buch, and Thomas Bayrle

Research Seminar and Workshop Agrocite- R-Urban, Colombes, Paris

28-29th June

A seminar with the experts involved in R-Urban research project, evaluating the potentialities of R-Urban, its limitations, questions This seminar will gather all research collaborators. This presentation is collectig from the previous workshop and will result in a report meant to be the basis of a paper to be included in a R-Urban book.
More info at http://r-urban.net/
http://www.urbantactics.org/projects/rurban/rurban.html
Thank you Doina and Constantin, and all Atelier d´Architecture Autogerée team

Intervention at the Triennial of Art and Gastronomy, Alenteijo, Portugal

24th June

3rd Session of the Inland Study Group: on Ecologies of the Art System,Territory and New Landscapes on Contemporary Culture. Matadero Madrid

22-23 June

Practices for Everyday Life, a seminar, Stockholm, Sweden

Friday 14 June, 9.30am - 8pm

A one-day seminar at The Project Room, Iaspis, Konstnärsnämnden, addressing the connection between artistic practice and life practice. The starting point for the discussion is the question of how artistic practice can be understood in relation to the formation of modes of existence rather than, in addition to, or as a consequence of, the production of artworks. How come recent years have seen an increase in visual artists indicating a desire to withdraw from the production cycles and infrastructures of the commercial-institutional art economy in search of alternatives to sustain their practice? How might these contemporary pursuits differ from earlier such attempts, as exemplified by the early twentieth century avant-gardes or politically-oriented art practices of the 1970s?

We have invited different artistic positions from the field of visual arts including artists working with the built environment as a way of shaping the conditions for one's daily existence, farming as an alternative or complementary infrastructure for sustaining art practice, the cultivation of daily practice influenced by the meeting between ancient Chinese philosophy and contemporary life, and the absolute refusal of all abstract labour in art, to discuss what it might mean to turn one´s practice onto life itself and how it is organized, individually or collectively, in attempting to effect social change. At the heart of the inquiry are questions such as the potential functions of the role of the artist beyond the current art system, the use value of art, and how to achieve sustainability for art and life practice alike.

With contributions from: Fernando Garcia Dory (ES), Hu Fang/Vitamin Creative Space (PRC), Anders Jakobsen (SE), Maurizio Lazzarato (FR), Francesco Matarrese (IT) Adam Sutherland/Grizedale Arts (UK) akcg/Konsthall C (SE) and Barnaby Drabble (CH).

Starting residence for project at Puglia, Italy

28th May – 10th, June 2013

This first approach will set the grounds for an intervention on the "borgate". Created by Mussolini after new land was made arable, once desecation of previous marshlands was completed, a territorial and social planning made able the construction of these new villages and colonist houses, in which many peasants settled, inhabiting fascist modernist arquitecture, part of the agrarian reform.
The Borgate were after the war forgotten or ignored, as part of the refusal of those dark times in Italian history. Many of them , through the years, have attained considerable autonomy, having to solve and sustain by themselves questions of security, justice, education and other services. Others, increasingly in ruins, have been occupied by migrant labourers, from Rumania and Albania.
The soil is yet fertile, but the identity and social acceptance of these still existing and new colonists is troublesome.
Special thanks for the support to Marco Gaetano - BIR, Vessel, and Roberto Cimetta Foundation.

Workshop at ICW 2013 on socially engaged practice, Bari, Italy

3rd – 5th, June 2013

Invited by Vessel to the 3rd annual International Curatorial Workshop. The Course will be composed of fifteen young curators from around the world.
ICW 2013 will be tutored by Consonni, Leone Contini, Curandi Katz, Marco Degaetano – XScape, Fernando Garcia Dory, Carolina Rito, WochenKlausur, Viviana Checchia, Anna Santomauro, Francesco Scasciamacchia, Charles Esche, Ilaria Gianni, Viktor Misiano and Marco Petroni together with other members of vessel’s committee.

The focus of the workshop is socially engaged practice and its various permutations at this point in contemporary society. We are interested in practitioners that believe in socially engaged practice as a tool to support an alternate system of labor and production; i.e. long-term engagement with marginal populations and territories rather than a limited-duration exhibition. We favor projects that apply social engagement as a means of investigating public opinion and need.

Our particular geographical area is the region of Apulia in connection with our neighbors in the Balkan and Mediterranean areas. Thus, the type of projects we seek use geographically specific information to confront political, social and cultural identity of specific populations that can be connected and applied on a wider scale.

To practically analyze this phenomenon, we will use case studies of examples of regional social practice that respond to these urgencies.

Additionally, each participant will be required to bring their own case study that connects to the instances of social practice. This can include the work of people, collectives or spaces.

Selecting the students for the 6th Shepherds School Course, Asturias, Northern Spain.

27th May 2013

Organising the shepherds council session with applicants and local authorities to select this year´s students, and press conference.

Throw a Rock and See what Happens exhibition, La Casa Encendida, Madrid

Opening 23rd May 2013

Presenting a plastic-emotional artifact inspired in the project "New Opportunity - The Colony" carried for one year already in the university campus, with the students.

Food for the Moon, a collaboration for Lea Porsager at Emily Harvey Foundation, 537 Broadway, New York

Friday, May 17, 2013 | 7:30 - 9 pm

Acting as the moving center for all human actions, the moon – according to the Armenian mystic George I. Gurdjieff – also constitutes the cause of our hypnotic sleep. Clearly far from suspecting our essentially functional role in feeding the moon with our own energies – and constantly waiting for the moon to cut its scythe across the sky – we live and sleep and live asleep, conducting our lives in a universe we haven't yet properly sensed nor consequently understood.

A potential healing of the cosmic mishap that the buffer-organ is, the May 17 meeting will take place at 537 Broadway as much as in our moving brain. As a lost tail on the Foundation's floor will soak in a sound-scape discharged from the moon; a three-brain structure will reflect on the walls; Karen Blixen’s lunatic pact will shine through; and space blankets will touch base with the earth, a kundalini gong-session will act as a wake-up call for the moon-food—mankind, or the three-brain beings. For those awaken – and for the sake of inversion – a moon soup will be prepared by Fernando Garcia-Dory. Marco Pasi's notes on the Kundabuffer can be found at academia.edu. Gong will be performed by Siri Rishi Kaur
Food for the Moon is curated by Chiara Vecchiarelli

Art & Social Change retreat meeting, Palm Springs, California

12th-15th May 2013

Hosted by the Annenberg Foundation at Sunnylands, this meeting will bring artists, and leading figures in the art world to explore, discuss, and share with each other non-traditional art practices that seek public involvement and social change. In addition, it is hoped the discussion will also address how organizations and institutions might play a constructive role in the field.

Organising a workshop on Transition Towns, Mallorca

3rd-5th May 2013

With professors May East and Juan del Rio.

First session of the Study Group on Ecologies of the Art System, New Landscapes and Territory, Matadero Madrid

19th-21st April 2013

The Research Group is put forward as an extension of interests dealt with the previous project named Inland – art, agricultures and countryside. 20 people have been selected from different backgrounds to form this Study Group after an open call. It is a moment for examination and reflection, where we will be sketching out lines of connection between current critical discourses on cultural/natural intersections in a broad sense and also between theory and practice. Taking biophysics and territories as the basis and central reference point for the phenomena of art and culture, we also plan to focus on an analysis of the transformation of art under a post-fordist capitalism, notions of utility, symbolic generation for social change as well as methods for sustainable living.

The group will therefore carry out text analyses on Friday, presentations of diverse case studies ranging from the issues of rural Russia today, colonised towns, agroecology in Japan, and new approaches to the planning of land use in the USA.

Os Saturday we will start the work at an empty lot near Matadero to host the future New Garden of Dahlias project , Inland headquarters, and diversity of agroecologycal infrastructure, from gardens to apiculture and a social kitchen.

On Friday we will have a field trip, in this case to a horse taming land-centre of Spanish dancing horses, to which has been invited also an ethologist of natural taming school - whispering , etc-

The program will be carried out through three lines of enquiry: 1. Ecologies of the art system: post-fordist conditioning of the cultural worker, reclaiming the commons and the promised land. 2. The represented landscape: bio-politics from the primary sector, biotechnology and new animism. 3. Land use, natural resources and ecological economics in rural/urban relationships.

The involvement of participants requires the availability for regular meetings with the work group, the attendance and active participation in research group discussions, individual study, working online and other specific activities that may be programmed throughout the year.

Workshop and conversation with Red Tape - Royal College of Arts -RCA London

16th April 2013

A day of interaction with RCA students, guided by Red Tape, and together with with Mark Smout and Laura Allen, lecturers at the Bartlett School of Architecture, who presented BELA at Venice Biennale last year
Register and read more here
Thank you Sasa Stucin
INLAND 2012-2013 projects show and conference and more. Matadero Madrid

21st to 24th March 2013

Within INLAND project I launched in 2010, now is time to evaluate and know the results of the collaborations with the other artists in 2012-13 production stage, in various villages spread throughout Spain. The final works and conclusions that have generated these experiences are presented in this week of multiple sides. A temporary settlement, and intense inmersion on the critical questions of each intervention.

From March Thursday 21 to Sunday 24, Matadero ( former Madrid´s city slaughterhouse hangars, now an arts venue) will hold a series of meetings and discussions between artists, project workers and a forum of experts in various disciplines formed by Jeromo Aguado, José Albelda, Daniel López y Antonio Viñas, which will serve both as an evaluation of the projects in 2012 as a reflection on the issue of rural nowadays. The presentation and discussion sessions are part of The Ecologies of Art and New Landscapes Study Group that Campo Adentro generates from now on, accompanied by a sound program by Jose Luis Carles and Cristina Palmese in collaboration with Abraham Rivera, an audiovisual program, and a gourmet-sound laboratory.

Opening the 21st with a conversation amongst artists Mario Garcia Torres, Fernando García Dory, Joao Fernandes ( Deputy Director Reina Sofia Museum) , Josefa Cortés (Wostell-Malpartida Museum Director), and Malpartida´s village mayor.

inland is a manifold cultural strategy that addresses the rural question, the relationship between the countryside and the city and the use value of art. Inland has developed since its original proposal by artist Fernando García Dory in 2010.

Between the 21st and 24th of March, Inland will be hosting an exhibition at Nave de Musica, Matadero Madrid where the works developed during the 2012-2013 artist in production programme will be discussed by the artists and local agents from the different participating regions.

The four-day programme includes the auditioning and commentary of rural sound archives, film screenings, discussions, and a space for gastronomic and sound experimentation by artists and other participants.

The programme of events is conceived as a moment of assessment through dialogue between artists, local residents and a multidisciplinary committee formed by cultural agents and representatives of peasant movements, with the special participation of SPEAP Paris research unit, directed by Bruno Latour, arranged in collaboration with Factum Arte.

inland explores the intersection of art and agriculture(s), rural environments, issues of regional imbalance, the transformation of the landscape and the environmental and financial crisis whilst acting as a platform for collaboration between artists, farmers, academics and agents of rural development.

After an initial stage of analysis, Inland's productive component has seen 22 artists working in as many villages dotted around the spanish countryside, and the presentation of annual exhibitions.

This years exhibition at Nave de Música gathers the results of the 2012 Artist in Residency programme in which 11 villages hosted as many artists, including: Can Altay (working in Carrícola, Valencia), Paco Arroyo (in Avinyó, Barcelona), Carmen Cañibano (in Prado, Zamora), Patricia Esquivias (in Calera y Chozas, Toledo), Mario García Torres (in Malpartida, Cáceres), Asunción Molinos (in Guzmán, Burgos), Antje Schiffers & Thomas Sprenger (in the region of Encartaciones, Vizcaya), Emma Smith (in Casares, Málaga), Susana Velasco (in Almonaster la Real, Huelva), WochenKlausur (in Puebla de Sanabria, Zamora) and the team composed by Bárbara Fluxá, José Bernal and Fernando Martín (in La Vera, Cáceres).

As part of the audio-visual programme the curators, Cristina Palmese and Jose Luis Carles, propose a talk-show in collaboration with Abraham Rivera, in which archival audio pieces are interwoven with discussions around the works on display and issues raised by the artists and other participants in the roundtable. The film screenings include Interview with John Berger (Groeneveld 2012) on Thursday the 21st; La Aldea Maldita (The Cursed Village) (Florian Rey, 1930) will be screened with live piano accompaniment by Jaime López in an improvised collaboration with the band Reserva Espiritual de Occidente on Friday the 22nd. On Saturday the 23rd artist Paco Arroyo will offer a musical performance in tandem with residents of Avinyó.

In collaboration with EspadayMonleón, Cristina Palmese, and the farming association Los Apisquillos, the laboratory for sound and gastronomy is conceived as an experiential space in which artists and guests are invited daily to share experiences and views on gastronomy, territory, music and sound art.

This series of events marks the beginning of a new phase for Inland, coinciding with the launch of The Ecologies of Art and New Landscapes Study Group in collaboration with Matadero Madrid.

The study group will consist of invited experts, members of the public selected through an open call and a network of international partners. The group will be a space for reflection, meeting once a month at Matadero Madrid to evaluate, discuss and plan the activities developed in the programme. These activities will include field trips and hands-on work in a plot of land nearby where a centre for rural rapprochement, the New Garden of Dahlias, is being constructed. The centre will be a place in which to learn apiculture and horticulture, housing a canteen, debates, presentations, screenings, and other activities proposed by local residents and affinity groups.

The artists and villages involved are:
Can Altay (in Carrícola, Valencia), Paco Arroyo (in Avinyó, Barcelona), Carmen Cañibano (en Prado, Zamora), Patricia Esquivias (en Calera y Chozas, Toledo), Mario García Torres (en Malpartida, Cáceres), Asunción Molinos (en Guzmán, Burgos), Antje Schiffers y Thomas Sprenger (en la Comarca de las Encartaciones, Vizcaya), Emma Smith (en Casares, Málaga), Susana Velasco (en Almonaster la Real, Huelva), WochenKlausur (en Puebla de Sanabria, Zamora), and Bárbara Fluxá, José Bernal y Fernando Martín (en La Vera, Cáceres).

See the full programe here

Your Totemic Animal… Or How To Milk A Sacred Pet? - Cabinet of Shadows, Amsterdam

14th March 2013

15:00–18:00 (room 105)

Masterclass : Wondering about ways in which contemporary human beings understand animals and nature and the development of different attitudes towards them; how did we understand animals in the past? How will we understand them in the future? As artists and cultural producers we can ask ourselves what role we want to play in this process, configuring new symbolical references for social change. In this workshop a consultancy is offered for art students rethinking art, its function and its context in relation to a broader notion of co-existing species within ecosystems, or ‘commonwealth of breath’. Philosophy is cross-referenced with works of the participants in an attempt to link the lure of the natural with a re-awaken the countryside.
Register here

The 12th, POIESIS OF WORLDING with: Ayreen Anastas, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Vinciane Despret, Rene Gabri, Fernando García-Dory, Marcos Lutyens

Where Are We Going, Walt Whitman? conference, Ritveld Academie, Amsterdam

12th-15th March 2013

The 12th, POIESIS OF WORLDING with: Ayreen Anastas, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Vinciane Despret, Rene Gabri, Fernando García-Dory, Marcos Lutyens
An ecosophical roadmap for artists and other futurists.
By exploring the potentialities of ecological worldviews, old and new, through theory and art, WAWGWW seeks to accelerate, accumulate, animate and activate our poetical and political understanding of the world. To this aim Gabriëlle Schleijpen, Head of Studium Generale Rietveld Academie invited Anselm Franke, Binna Choi, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev as well as Natasha Ginwala & Vivian Ziherl to each inaugurate a discursive and performative program of one day. In their scintillating company plus that of the many great artists, poets, writers, thinkers, activists and musicians they’ve teamed up with, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie will embark on an energetic 4 day – long voyage.
Read more here
Thank you Gabriëlle Schleijpen, Joris, Jort, and all Ritveld team, and Carolyn, Rene, Vinciane, Marcos, Ayreen and all other participants and students for making it so great.

500 European Shepherds meet to hear the verdict of the European Court in Strasbourg.

7 March 2013

Organisations of cattle breeders and shepherds from all over Europe will protest in this manner against the mandatory introduction of an electronic chip on each animal.
The Spanish Federation of Shepherds joined several organisations of small cattle breeders from different European countries (France, United Kingdom, Hungary, Netherlands, Luxembourg, etc.) working in extensive farming, in filing a claim against Individual Electronic Identification (EID) that the German Sheep Breeders Association filed in 2012 against European Comission before the Court of Stuttgart that is currently pending a decision by the European Court of Justice.
On 7 March, representatives of shepherds from all over Europe will meet in Strasbourg after they were summoned by the European Court based in this city.
The claim was filed because of the flaws in the system at the time in which it is to be implemented, particularly in its pin form. These deficiencies have been reported in all Member States where the system has been implemented, as well as the injury it results in for the tagged animal.
In addition to its inefficiency, this system involves several bureaucratic phases and costs for farmers that we deem excessive at all levels, and are the same whether or not a disease has broken out.
In addition, in Spain we find that, on top of individual identification, the animals must keep the tag, which in practice involves double mandatory identification. Should the animal lose the tag, something that is perfectly possible in extensive herds, the cost of re-identification of the animal is also borne by the farmer, so that the herds, especially extensive ones, are paying even higher cost overruns than just the EID's own and we believe this is absolutely unfair.
According to the coordinator of the Spanish Federation of Shepherds, Fernando García-Dory: "Making the chip compulsory is the last straw in a series of absurd and inconsistent policies for small livestock farms that are so valuable for the environment and society in Europe. Such policies are designed in Brussels without any input from farmers and are cut off from reality in the field. They might end a way of life that is already seriously endangered by the low prices that the global market imposes and other causes. The EID results exclusively from an excessive desire for control and bureaucratisation of agriculture as well as the economic interests of those who produce the device. This is a historic moment in which shepherds from all over Europe are uniting and saying “Enough is enough”. We know that the public prefers shepherds, rural landscapes and high-quality products over industrialisation and mechanisation of food production concentrated in few companies that continue to cause food scares and animal discomfort.”

INLAND Station, in Matadero Madrid

14th-16th February 2013

Inland Station is an installation-cum-eatery that presents the cultural strategy undertaken by Inland - Campo Adentro for the re-assessment of the relations between city and countryside as well as the study and development of new contexts and functions for Contemporary Art. A selection of projects will be exhibited alongside documentation of the results of the production phase during the several artist's residencies conducted throughout the Spanish countryside. The events program at Matadero Madrid will include discussions with the artists and neighbours and performances. Food will be served daily with tastings of products and dishes from several participating regions.

You can read the full program here
And see the flickr album of those days here and here

INLAND Station, in Matadero Madrid

14th-16th February 2013

You can read the full program here
And see the flickr album of those days here and here

Thursday, 14. ARCOmadrid 2013- ARCO Foundation Room Pavillion 8 .

12.30 to 14.00 The Future of Art: peripheries, use value and social change

Roundtable with Can Altay (artist), Alistair Hudson (Grizedale Arts), Vasif Kortun (curator), Chus Martinez ( chief curator Museo del Barrio NY), Laura Raicovich (Creative Time NY), moderated by Fernando García Dory

Matadero Madrid, Warehouse 16.2 Opening from 19h to 23 h

19 h Presentation of School for Tourists, with Emma Smith and neighbours from Casares (Malaga), Alistair Hudson ( Grizedale Arts)

20 h Presentation of Ich bin ein Bauer auch möchte is gerne bleiben- I like being a farmer and would like to stay one, by Antje and neighbours and mayors from Encartaciones (Vizcaya).

Dinner served: a traditional putxero from Encartaciones and Txacoli wine, and artisan Casares cheese.

Friday 15. Matadero Madrid. Hangar 16.2. Opened from 11

16 – 20 h Emma Smith at information desk of School of Tourists, project in Casares (Málaga)

20h-23h Presentation of the work of Can Altay developed in Carrícola (Valencia), and discussion with neighbours, Charles Esche ( Van Abbe Museum) , Vasif Kortun (SALT Istanbul), and Laura Raicovich (Creative Time NY).

Dinner served from Valencian horticultural products and wines and chufa beer.

DJ Session Exotica? : rural music from the last 100 years from the 5 continents, selected by Abraham Rivera ( Programmer of ECO festival)

Saturday 16. Matadero Madrid. Warehouse 16.2. Open from 11

16 – 20 h Emma Smith at information desk of School of Tourists, project in Casares ( Málaga)

20h -23 h A hectare of land is handed over to whoever offers to cultivate it during the presentation of Carmen Cañibano's project Working time(s). In conversation with representatives of the Plataforma Rural, Jesus Carrillo ( Museo Reina Sofia) and Manuela Villa (Matadero Madrid) Roundtable on "The future of Art: peripheries and social change", ARCO Madrid

14th February 2013

From 12.30 to 14.00 h , at ARCO Foundation Room Pavillion 8*, I propose and moderate this conversation with Can Altay (artist), Alistair Hudson (Grizedale Arts), Vasif Kortun (curator), Chus Martinez (chief curator Museo del Barrio NY), Laura Raicovich (Creative Time NY).

Interesting enough or just eye-catching , this incursion in the heart of the beast will be the departure point for Inland Station, from 14th to 16th February-.

You can read the full program here

And about Inland project here and in the "corporate-institutional" website

*Professional access request for ARCOmadrid

Taking part in a shepherds protest in Rhone-Alpes, France

31st January - 1st February 2013

Part of he European Shepherds Network has carried an action of protest in the south of France against the mandatory electronic identification of sheep that EU is imposing. French, Spanish and German shepherds crossed towns and cities for 4 days, ending in Valence.
Every day there was screened the documentary "Mouton 2.0" , and different communication and discussion actions were carried.
The Network will carry on the struggle to allow pastoralists to keep doing their way of life without absurd laws that restrain freedom and autonomy.

Read more here

New York University Campus at Villa La Pietra Artists Retreat. Florence, Italy

30th November - 3rd December 2012

This retreat is to discuss social practice art in public spaces. The impetus for this retreat was developed by the Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum in conjunction with New York University Florence. We have been joined in this effort by Creative Time. Together we are convening an intimate group of approximately 25 colleagues—artists, arts professionals, and NYU professors—to discuss current issues and new developments in socially-engaged artistic practice. We will delve deeply into the impacts and implications of these practices. From artists and city planners to national arts funders and government agencies, increasingly diverse fields are contending with and engaging the complexities of the impacts of culture and how they relate to notions of public space.

" Now I gotta a reson" , living in the gallery and building some furniture and feasible enterprise - group show at Jerwood Space, London

7th - 17th November 2012

Read more here

Field visit and preparation of project with Mario Garcia-Torres for Inland, Campo Adentro, Extremadura

28th October - 1st November 2012

Read more here

Opening of installation and performance "descansadero / rest shack" and cheese-tasting action , Forosur, Caceres

25th October - 26th October 2012

Read more here

Meeting with students and discussion on the new season continuity of New Opportunity - The Colony, Universidad Complutense, Madrid

24th October 2012

Meeting with dairy farmers unions representatives and members, Mostyn, Wales UK

21st October 2012

Taking part in forum on Rural Arts, at Entartete Kunstler Hommage, Kurt Schwitters Merzbarn, Lakes District , UK

20th October 2012

Presenting at Hermes Foundation to launch School for Crafts project, Paris

17th October 2012

FRIEZE - Running the Angry Milk Bar, London

14th October 2012

Read more here

Receiving the Ahnnenberg prize and attending Creative Time Conference , New York

11th October - 13h October 2012

Read more here

Closing ceremony of the 2012 7th Course of the Shepherds School, Northern Spanish mountains

29th September - 31st September 2012

Read more here

Moderating a round table and lecture on educational strategies for the International Goat Association Summit, Las Palmas, Canary Islands

25th September - 26th September 2012

Read more here

Installing and opening of "A Dairy Museum", exhibition in Mostyn, Wales -UK

22nd September 2012 - 6th January 2013

Read more here

Seminar on seeds and NAF Academy with other artists in Documenta 13, Kassel

10th September - 15th September 2012

Read more here

Hungry Cities - exhibition at Kunstraum Kreuzberg - Berlin

1st September - 18 October 2012

There are currently few other topics that make such a pertinent link between art and society as food and nutrition. Contemporary urban gardens are being presented as parts of exhibitions and symposia on philosophy, artists are turning to gardening or farming and chefs are becoming artists - it also seems like few other topics manage to unite so many seemingly contradictory manners and tendencies. Parallel to this, discussions are taking place concerning traditional concepts and methods, small rural business and the cultivation of old varieties of fruit as well as utopian projects, such as inner-city farms. Slow Food, an association of people committed to high-quality, traditionally produced food, has seen a steady increase in its followers over the years, while residents of US cities located in so-called 'food deserts' seem to only yearn after discount stores. Diverse social developments such as these have long been reflected in artistic practices.
The international group show Hungry City follows different directions of the debate and assembles a selection of artistic works that address many different aspects of food production and supply. Contemporary pieces are juxtaposed with works by renowned artists of the 1970s and 80s demonstrating that the issue was already a virulent one within art circles during the past decades. Currently, new art forms such as rural art and urban agricultural projects attempt to clarify the volatile issue and point out changes in stereotypical attributions found in urban and rural areas. Following cultural theoretical exhibitions dealing with food and large-scale projects looking at sustainability, the exhibition Hungry City offers a first-time survey in Germany of agricultural aspects in art from 1960 until today.
The exhibition also focuses on the relationship between town and country and examines these interactions with movements between the two poles playing a role in many respects. This mostly concerns the exchange between food producers and consumers, as well as the changes in food's consistency or physical state during preparation. However, the paths made to transport food are also illustrated: From continent to continent, countryside to city or from the kitchen to the hungry.
Within this context, Carolyn Steel, architect and author of the book "Hungry City - How Food Shapes Our Lives" calls for a parallel perception of urban and rural areas: "Feeding Cities has become rather more complicated than it was in the fourteenth century. But one thing is certain: however much we look the other way, our rural hinterland will always mirror the way we live. Ancient cities were run on slave labor, so were the farms that fed them. Medieval cities thrived on trade, so did their hinterlands. Modern cities, like industrialized hinterlands, have little respect for nature. If we do not like what's happening out there in the landscape, we had better rethink how we eat, because one will never change without the other"
Accompanying program of events: The accompanying program for the exhibition Hungry City in Kunstraum Kreuzberg pursues to emphasize the connection between urban and rural areas, visiting places of food production both here and there. Starting at an urban cultural centre, a series of diverse events hopes to provide a view upon and route towards near and distant surroundings.
Artists: Sonja Ahlhäuser (D), Maria Thereza Alves (BRA / I), Yekaterina Anzupowa (D), KP Brehmer (D), Agnes Denes (USA), Letitia El Halli Obeid (ARG), Fall Fruit (USA), Amy Franceschini (USA ), Fernando Garcia Dory (E), Sun Green Fort (DK), cultivator (SE), Kristina Leko (CROA), Ulrike Ludwig (D), Matthew Moore (USA), MyVillage (NL, D, UK), Henry Riebesehl ( D), D Antje Schiffer & Thomas Sprenger (), Bonnie Sherk (USA), Lukasz Skapski (PL), Asa Sonja yolk (SE / D), Daniel Spoerri (D), Superflex (DK), Insa Winkler (D), Christa Zeißig (D)

Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds
Curators: Anne Kersten (exhibition), Stéphane Bauer (accompanying program)

Residence and counseling the expansion of new rural arts in Russia: Nikola-Lenivets

15th August - 30th August 2012

Together with a group of experts (founders and staff from the residences worldwide, representatives of residences networks, urbanists/rurbanists etc) selected by N-L team, I will have the chance to visit AiR Nikola-Lenivets Park, which aspect of is that the vast territory (around 600 Ha) is opened for the experiments and proposals – projects that will make staying of people here promising and inspiring.
The challenge of the place is to create a territory of sustainable development based on new creative energies.

During the past 10 years part of the territory has become well known because of two phenomena – community practice of the artist Nikolay Polissky and ArchStoyanie architecture festival.
AiR Nikola-Lenivets has to be an engine that will help to develop community-art practices here towards the area Polissky explores and to master the new spaces with the help of the various multidisciplinary practices (art farming, creative industries, research and educational projects, eco-design, architecture etc.)
This practice can be parallel to the development of ArchStoyanie Festival and also can intersect with it and influence changes in its concept.

And 2 days discussion is programmed too :
August 17-18, "Art as farming and farming as an art"
Farming can be understood as a pragmatic and useful activity in the industrial and economic sector, known as "agriculture".
'This aspect is an important part of "the archetype of memory" of Nicola-Lenivets. Even the recent times the locals recall as an agricultural paradise.
Restoration of farming in the new forms and formats is one of the directions of the development of the surrounding area.
In this case, the abundance of creative energy accumulated here in the Nicola-Lenivets, can help to reinterpretate the concept of farming.
This type of work with the ground, turning into a metaphor, allows us to speak about "cultivation"of the local products, not necessarily farming, but products which have demand in new markets of culture, labor, education, design, and possibly, still agriculture.

Participate:

Aurora Tang, Center for Land Use Interpretation (USA)
Vytautas Michelkevicius, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (Lithuania)
Fernando Garcia Dory, director of the project, Campo Adentro (Spain)
Carlos Monleon-Gendall, artist (Spain/GB)
Yury Perelygin, expert in the field of territorial and strategic planning and design (Russia)
Inna Prilezhaeva, Director of the AiR Program, Nikola-Lenivets (Russia)
George Nikich, Project Consultant (Russia)
Nikolay Polissky, artist (Russia) TBC

New artists in land

August - December 2012

Part of the Inland project is to mobilize artists to work at certain rural villages, at spanish countryside.
For this year, I am very pleased to announce that Can Altay, Antje Schiffers, Mario Garcia Torres, Emma Smith and Wochenklausur will take part in this production program.
Follow their field diaries and projects at www.campoadentro.es

Meeting and conference by Charles Esche, Grizedale Arts, Cumbria

24th- 26th July 2012

Appart from meeting with Van Abbe and Grizedale, about a potential european network around The New Mechanics - INLAND, I had the great pleasure of attending The Annual John Ruskin Memorial Lecture: Charles Esche: Living in Historical Times.

John Ruskin only ever gave one formal lecture in the Coniston Institute, although the whole project of the building could be read as one. And I suspect there wasn’t a huge interest from the miners in his subject - Corinthian detailing. None-the-less lectures done the right way can be a galvanizing experience, especially with a few quality snacks thrown in. On this occasion we are thrilled and delighted to welcome Charles Esche, Director of the Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven (the museum everyone is talking about these days) to speak on the above subject. Charles can always be relied upon to shed some coherence upon the chaos of the human trajectory so we recommend this one.

A Shepherds Assembly, Kassel

23rd June 2012

Comissioned by dOCUMENTA 13 , and with the support of the League for Pastoral Peoples, will gather eight shepherd leaders from various pastoral organizations across Europe. The event aims to rethink European history by focusing on a social and cultural movement animated by shepherds who inspire an alternative development and identity model for the continent.
According to the presnote:
Through this action, Spanish artist Fernando García-Dory further investigates neopastoralism as a sustainable response to technoscience and questions the forms and positions that art and artists can embrace in this transformation process.
This activated project of dOCUMENTA (13) follows the artist’s ongoing research, participation in the creation of a European Shepherd Network, and publication of Dream Farms within the ‘100 Notes – 100 Thoughts’ series of dOCUMENTA (13).
A Shepherd Assembly will give voice to the participating shepherds and feature drawings, maps and a film. Chus Martínez, Head of Department and Member of Core Agent Group of dOCUMENTA (13), said that “this project directly echoes theories developed by Donna Haraway and contributes to creating new artistic languages to rethink social sciences outside of constructed hierarchies between man and animal, culture and nature.”
Thank you to pastoralists representatives from Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Scotland and Italy, as well as to Dora Garcia and Tue Greenfort for there assistance in the ritual of cultural legitimation of the European Shepherds Network

Lecturing at Image Symposium: Bewitched System.The exorcising role of images. CA2M. Madrid

18th to 22nd June 2012

"Une fois par année, les pauvres mangent du chien. Une fois par année, les fous sont maîtres. Le reste du temps, les maîtres sont fous." Jean Rouch

Among all sharing things, images play a capital role in the construction of our bodies and subjectivities by virtue of their equivocal status, their disturbing number, their traffic and their emotional power. What can be done in the face of images, true «power-objects» that saturate our spaces and times? How to «harden» ourselves in order to avoid being internally captured?

We could easily imagine the system that governs us as a bewitched system, i.e., a system of reciprocal possession between beings and things in which images act as producers and sensors of desires. In the so called traditional societies, the healer has no other option to heal the possessed person than to negotiate with the «masters», the spirits inhabiting the sick person’s body.
Let’s dare to set a parallelism and pose ourselves the following question: are not images one of the active and underlying healing remedies to become imperative in front of the desires and disturbances created by the capitalist sorcery?

Today like yesterday, images, a power instrument, both poison and remedy, is created in its time. These lectures are precisely addressed the images users. Sharing our emotions linked to image, naming the images that possess us, discussing the enigmas open by demanding images, briefly, we invite you to take part in the XIX Image Symposium, what could become an image parliament.

CA2M hosts the XIX Image Symposium of the Regional Government of Madrid which will take place from June 18th to 22nd. This edition will hold: an international seminar of artists and theoreticians opened to the public; a forum of investigation on theory and artistic practice with a presentation of the works during the critical sessions of the Symposium and, also, two workshops conducted by an artist. Conducted by Vincent Meessen and Pablo Martínez

Lecturers: Aurora Fernández Polanco, Dora García, Fernando García Dory, Avery Gordon, Joachim Koester, Kobe Matthys, Marie-José Mondzain, Maurizio Lazzarato, Jalal Toufic, Tamar Guimarâes and Eulalia Valldosera.

More info at CA2M website

Documenta (13) opening, Kassel, Germany.

6th to 9th June 2012

Heading to Kassel to attend the opening of Documenta ( 13) , to which I contribute with a book for the series of small books entitled 100 Notes – 100 Thoughts, published together with Hatje Cantz, a work for and an intervention as "Activated project" , for the 23rd June at the Ottoneum, "A shepherds assembly", and assorted materials on the Shepherds School project for “The Worldly House. An archive inspired by Donna Haraway's writings on multi-species co-evolution compiled and presented by Tue Greenfort”.

According to Documenta Press Note:
The dance was very frenetic, lively, rattling, clanging, rolling, contorted and
lasted for a long time
dOCUMENTA (13) for 100 days,
over 150 artists from 55 countries and other participants from around the world
will gather and present artworks, including sculpture, performance, installation,
research, archiving and curatorial projects, painting, photography, film and video,
text and audio works as well as other objects and experiments in the fields of art,
politics, literature, philosophy, and science.

Statement by Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev
“dOCUMENTA (13) is dedicated to artistic research and forms of imagination
that explore commitment, matter, things, embodiment, and active living in
connection with, yet not subordinated to, theory and epistemological closures.
These are terrains where politics are inseparable from a sensual, energetic, and
worldly alliance between current research in various scientific and artistic fields
and other knowledges both ancient and contemporary. dOCUMENTA (13) is
driven by a holistic and non-logocentric vision that is skeptical of the persisting
belief in economic growth. It is shared with, and recognizes, the shapes and
practices of knowing of all the animate and inanimate makers of the world,
including people. Participants of dOCUMENTA (13) come from a range of fields
of activity. Most of them are artists, but some also come from the fields of science,
including physics and biology, eco-architecture and organic agriculture,
renewable-energy research, philosophy, anthropology, economic and political
theory, language and literature studies, including fiction and poetry. They
contribute to dOCUMENTA (13) that aims to explore how different forms of
knowledge lie at the heart of the active exercise of re-imagining the world. What
some of these participants do, and what they “exhibit” in dOCUMENTA (13),
may or may not be art. However, their acts, gestures, thoughts, and knowledges
produce and are produced by circumstances that are readable by art, aspects that
art can cope with and absorb"

About documenta
documenta is a periodic art exhibition that began in the mid-twentieth century
after the trauma of World War II. Its aim was to re-establish culture and the visual
arts as a primary focus in society, and to reconnect Germany with the field of
international contemporary art at that time. Its history is different from other
exhibitions, mainly because it did not emerge from the nineteenth-century trade
fairs or world fairs of the colonial period—bringing to the old European center the
marvels of the world. It emerged instead within a space where collapse and
recovery are articulated. Since its first edition in 1955, every five years documenta
has been an exhibition of contemporary art from around the world, as well as a
moment to reflect on the relationship between art and society.

More information at http://d13.documenta.de

The VII Introductory Course to Mountain Pastoralism of the Shepherds School starts

14th May April 2012

Besides the difficulty of having no funding support for this years course, together with shepherd- teachers and pupils we have decided to go on. This will be an experiment of self-management and mutually supported training system. 4 pupils ( 2 men , 2 women of an averaged of 25 years old ) start today the theory program and from 1st June until the 30th of September they will live in the mountains with their shepherd- teachers.

More info on the Shepherds School project here

Preparatory visit to Northern Wales and Snowdonia National Park farmers

1 to 3 May 2012

As preparation for next show at Mostyn Gallery , in which I will also reflect on Radovan Kraguly´s work on art and farming in the 70´s, I was taken in to a field trip in the area to meet and discuss with dairy farmers and unions leaders about their involvement in the future action , planned for september this year.
Thank you Ben Borthwick, Alfredo Cramerotti, Nia Roberts and Mostyn team.

Seminar of the People´s University Paulo Freire, Serrania de Ronda, Malaga

5th May 2012

Presentation on the relation between free teaching and alternative education systems, inspired by Freire, and contemporary arts.

Workshop and Board Meeting of the World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Pastoralists ( WAMIP) , at Dana, Jordan .

9 to 13 April 2012

Taking part as trustee of WAMIP and moderator and presenter of the WAMIP action plan.
After leaving Amman to Dana Nature Reserve, the morning sessions of Day One are set aside for short presentation from the WAMIP representatives r(10-15 minutes each region) on the impact [or potential impact] of the Dana Declaration and specificities of conditions for mobile peoples in their region. This presentation is in preparation for the Day Two discussions in break out groups to identify issues which need to be taken up in the Statement for Rio +20.

More information at www.wamip.org.
Thank you WAMIP and Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development and University of Oxford for funding me.

Living As Form (The Nomadic Version) at Kadist Foundation, San Francisco, CA.

March 10 through May 12

Living as Form suggests a reconsideration of recent social practice artworks that, while represented in museums and art venues, have a real life outside of those contexts. At large, they aren’t always so easy to pick out as art. Creative activism, conversation, organization, and occupations of public space challenge the assumed boundaries between art and life. In the words of lead curator Nato Thompson, “socially engaged art shares techniques and intentions borrowed from fields far beyond the arts. These cultural practices indicate new ways of life that emphasize participation, challenge power, and span disciplines ranging from urban planning and community work to theater, the visual arts, and civic-minded nonprofit organizations. These projects defy easy categorization, and raise contradictions regarding issues of authorship.”  Bringing together a wide range of international projects made between 1991 and 2011 and selected in collaboration with twenty-five curators from around the world, Living as Form (The Nomadic Version) also takes up new projects as it travels. Kadist Art Foundation is the first venue to host the exhibition, which is presented here as a series of screenings, talks, and participatory events that will add to the archive as it continues on to future venues.The exhibition will unfold over the course of the spring in a series of screenings, talks, and participatory events organized by independent curator Christina Lind

Fernando García-Dory talks about “A World Gathering of Nomadic Peoples” (2005-2007) in a video interview produced by Kadist Art Foundation for Living as Form (The Nomadic Version).
 Video will be on view: April 7, 12-5pm April 11, 12-7pm April 14, 12-5pm April 18, 12-7pm

More information at the exhibition website "Living as form"

Thank you Christina Linden and Joseph del Pesco.

Commons Lab Discussion Session: Commons and the Countryside. Medialab, Madrid

22/03/2012

Place: Medialab-Prado · Plaza de las Letras, C/ Alameda, 15 Madrid
Second general session of the Commons Lab work groups2011-2012. This meeting is moderated by Fernando Garcia Dory. This session is focused on the rural environment, common assets management, food supplies.
Some of the themes we would like to discuss are:
•The management of communal resources
•The relation between material and digital commons. What lessons can they learn from each other?
•The tension between closed and open communities (following the debate that took place during the session dedicated to commons and the city)
•Environment and sustainability
•and food sovereignty.
We shall end the session presenting the initiative of Login style journeys, aimed at learning about communal resource management both in Madrid (April) and in a small village in Galicia (June). This meeting is open to anyone interested in the proposals, in collaborating in any of them or in participating in the debate.
Thank you Laura, Marcos, Patricia , Nerea and the rest of Medialab team.
You can read more see the video streaming and file in this medialab link

Presentations of the project New Opportunity - The Colony. University of Fine Arts and Architecture, Madrid

21-22/03/2012

A call to anyone interested in taking part in the creation and development of a new experimental site for interaction, cultivation, construction and human development. A new community is planned to settle in the university campus: open air classroom, seedlings greenhouses, a tower and farming field are planned to happen from now until the end of the agricultural season. A diverse program of lectures, events, performances and self-learning group classes will be defined, tackling issues from social utopias at the dawn of industrial era, antagonist relational art, aquaculture, beer and cheese making and animism.
Come and get involved. Take part and belong to the Colony.
Thursday 22nd March, 16.30 Fine Arts University
Friday 23rd March, 18.30 Architecture University

Read more abou the project in its website, here

ECO ART In Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet, College Art Association, Los Angeles

22/02/2012

Presentation of the book by Linda Weintraub and published by University of California Press , 2012 featuring the work of Fernando Garcia-Dory , followed by a panel discussion entitled Headlines! Environmental News. Artist Presenters. Audience Respondents, his panel reverses the typical approach where artists report on completed works of art. In this instance, artists present the inception of a work of art, focusing on their creative process.
The panel is sponsored by the Leonardo Education Art Forum (LEAF), an affiliate of two prestigious organizations - the College Art Association and Leonardo Journal produced by MIT Press.

More information here

All the Rest is Wasteland: Art in the Post-Agrarian Landscape, Lecture at ATC, Berkeley, California

13/02/2012

Outside of the metropolis, rural area is increasingly becoming a contested zone where the most pressing issues of our time are being played out. These issues include environmental sustainability, global economics versus local economies, issues of food production and genetic modification, and cultural commodification. In the process of adaptation to a shifting global, order vast transformations are taking place in the biophysical, social, and cultural realms - a scenario that is not exempt from conflict.
In this context Fernando Garcia Dory's experimental intervention in rural Spain called "Inland / Campo Adentro" questions the role of creativity and arts, and the artist’s function, as grounds for a new genre of landscape.

Hosted by The Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium of the Berkeley Center for New Media.
read more here

Land, Use. Exhibition and public program at Hazel Wolf Gallery, David Brower Center, San Francisco, California

09/02/2012 to 09/05/2012

Communities around the world have been broken apart by land development, the disappearance of tradition, and stark differences in values around land use. From farming and seed libraries to the livelihood of nomadic shepherds … what does “preservation” mean when it comes to tradition, land, and knowledge?

For this exhibition, the David Brower Center has commissioned the first collaboration between Amy Franceschini (San Francisco, CA) and Fernando García-Dory (Madrid, Spain).

Franceschini and Garcia-Dory share artistic interests and approaches. Using social practice methods such as direct engagement with communities, they explore themes related to humankind's collaboration with the land. In particular, they are interested in how the development of contemporary cities has affected traditional land use such as farming and shepherding, as well as how such agrarian practices can exist within the contemporary world.

Both artists participate in and engage with contemporary practitioners of these pastoral or agricultural livelihoods. As part of their artistic practices, they learn and enable others to learn from farmers and shepherds who hold knowledge bases of their crafts passed down through generations. In doing so, they are fostering the preservation of tradition, knowledge and memory. Through major public events in urban environments, community gatherings, design, sculptures and social media, the artists have raised awareness of agrarian practices, as well as how they might be incorporated into contemporary society, politics and everyday life.
Thursday, February 9 will be the Opening Reception
In the Hazel Wolf Gallery
7 pm – 9 pm
Finding a Trail: Art & Social Practice
A dynamic conversation with the artists in the Goldman Theater

Saturday, February 11
4:30 pm – 7 pm

Afternoon Screening and Social
Join the artists and the Greenhorns for a screening of OUR LAND, a documentary exploring the lives of America's young farming community – its spirit, practices, and needs. Stay for a dialogue with environmental activists tenants at Brower center around corporate culture and activism, and the shepherds legacy.

RSVP here or call (510) 809-0900 ext. 116.

More information here
·

R-Urban / Eco_Commun2_Workshop avec Fernando Garcia Dory et aaa, Colombes, Paris

13-15/01/2012

This workshop will actually start to examine the possibilities R-urban project and all the empty lots of land got from Paris city council open for experimentig new ways to organise, produce and inhabit our cities.
There will be presentations on the history of ideal green cities, and what has been achieved in so far, plus the building of a greenhouse and farm plannning.

You can see the program and other practical infos here

Thank you Doina and Constantin, and the rest of atelier d´architecture autogeree (AAA) team.

Exhibition of Inland project comissioned artists 2011, Madrid

12-14/12/2011

During three days a "living exhibition" will be set up in the main patio of La Casa Encendida cultural venue. It is the time to gather the 12 artists and their projects, previously shown in Fall 2011 in their respective villages, that took part in the Inland/Campo Adentro Art, Agricultures and Countryside Residencies Program 2011. Each residency project will have a space to intervene in, where the artist/s and the local host representatives will talk and explain to anyone visiting the show. In the evenings there will be debates with art experts assessing the results from this stage. The documentary filmed this summer 2011 interviewing all the artists and village neighbors throughout the country will be screened as well.
The 14th December there will be a closing party with a concert by Lorena Alvarez y su Banda Municipal and a wine tasting provided by the Bodegas Perez Veros, Ribera de Duero, to be followed by a DJ session by Montana Sagrada.
It would be impossible to thank all the people who contributed to the exhausting preparation of the show, but specially to Campo Adentro team, Cecile Frappat, Margaux Andre and Manon for the architectural design of the space, Bodegas Perez Veros, the guest speakers, LCE and all the others.
All materials used where recycled from the main Madrid food market, and later donated to Tabacalera Social Center.

Read more and see the program here

Taking part in AG Meeting on Sheep and Goat, Brussels

28/11/2011

I will take part in this official meeting of the Advisory Group on Sheep and Goat Meat, called by the General Direction on Agriculture of the European Comission.
The president of the Spanish Shepherds Federation ( FEP) will come with me as well, to see how decisions are taken on the key issues that affect their lively hoods. A gloomy panorama on the sector in Europe is expected to be delivered by expert consultants, and there will be the chance to meet other shepherd colleagues from member states as UK, France or Germany. A robustly constitued raw of industrial representatives will be as well giving their opinion on issues as mandatory vaccination of floks or the Electronic Identification System legal provision, that, if passed, will obligate livestock keepers to massively buy the devices.
Thank you Gwyn Jones and the European Foundation for Culture, Nature and Pastoralism, and the European Environmental Bureau for their support.

Exchange visit of shepherds to Basque Country

28-30/10/2011

During two days I will lead a touring field trip for shepherds, young cheesemakers and pupils of the Shepherds School of Asturias to the twin project in Oñate, Arantzazu, Basque Country.
The visits will make possible exchange amongst youngsters interested in becoming shepherds from both regions, and to see the different ways in which this new shepherds re-invent the trade. From small isolated collective self-build farms in the woods, to highly technified cheese making family industries, local breed of sheeps gene banks and organic diversified farms.

Conference on Potato, San Sebastian

21/10/2011

Organised by Cristinaenea Foundation in Donosti - San Sebastian, Spain, during three days,19th to 21st October, a seminar under the title "Agriculture and Modernity" runs in the occasion of an exhibition titled "The potatoes and the facts" with comissioned works by Isaias Griñolo and Asa Sonjasdotter. I will offer a lecture titled " Cultural strategies on the rural". Other speakers are leaders of Via Campesina, environmental activists and sociologists. The seminar will end with a poetry reading on "The decline of the potato", a key crop in early Basque Country industrialisation, subject of new modern farming techniques itself in the last century.
Thank you Oier Etxebarria, curator.

Read more in basque and spanish here
Download the pdf program here

Intervening in the meeting for a White Book on Trashumance

19/10/2011

Called by the Ministry of Farming a meeting with the main stakeholders around pastoralism in Spain gather in the Centre for Agricultural Training in Madrid. The aim is to jointly draft a White Book on Trashumance, that will be published in December 2011. It will offer an analysis of the current situation of extensive livestock systems in the country and in the world, and will pose the main obstacles this activity is facing and the actions to be taken to enhance this practice in the close term. Spain is the only country already protecting by law a network of sheep trails across the country, a public domain and a privilege coming from Middle Age.
The ultimate goal of this draft White Paper is to be further extended as a Law on Trashumance, something that the Museum´s Pastoral - FEPFederation of Shepherds (FEP), coordinated by the artist , will stand for in 2012.

Ice Cream Social at Brower Center, San Francisco, California

14/10/2011

Both artists, Amy Franceschini and Fernando Garcia Dory, who will be featured in the first gallery exhibition of 2012, will be there on Thursday Oct. 13, to launch the project. Fernando's previous work with his Shepherd's School and cheese design introduced him to dairy production. Together with Amy´s interest in local agricultural systems and how they translate globally, they will host a cow/goat milk ice cream social as a way to connect their work with the Center.
From the artists:
"Both of us combine artistic practice with environmental concerns (how else could it be?), so for this occasion we would like to understand the various perspectives on "environmental activism" with the groups and individuals working at the Brower. We would like to have the chance to talk with you between now and our exhibition in February. We would welcome your input as an important element in a final collaborative artwork."

Closing Ceremony of Shepherds School´s 5th Course

30/09/2011

The traditional event carried at the end of every year´s course of this project I started in 2004, has this time a special meaning. I will present to the people gathered in the shepherds house in the mountains, including authorities, shepherds, pupils, etc, a proposal to stablish the project autonomously and enlarged. The discussion is opened, we will see the results and people´s commitment to its continuity. Some news in local press here, and also here, and here.

Presentation of Inlad/Campo Adentro, and openings.Medialab Madrid

14/09/2011

12 villages open simultanously the exhibitions of 18 artists in residence within the Campo Adentro project. In this context, Medialab-Prado hosts the presentation of the results of these residencies, turning into a connection center where different events are streamed live and artists present their own works. I will connect with some of them on live streaming, while showing videos or images of others. Representatives of the Rural Platform, Ministries of Environment , Farming and Culture will join the event. A final tasting of farm products, like Almeria greenhouse´s vegetables, artisan cheese and fish from the Cantabric Fishermen Coops. , together with conceptual wines and cider, will be served.
More here.

Intervention at Überlebenskunst Festival, Haus der Kulturen der Welt,Berlin

17-21/08/2011

How do we define "good living" given the global ecological crisis? This question, which is relevant for everyone no matter what social group they belong to, is the central thematic focus of ÜBER LEBENSKUNST (the art of living), an initiative project of the Federal Cultural Foundation in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. In a multi-part programme, the project explores the profound changes our planet is undergoing through art – in performance, visual art, music, discourse and literature.ULK brings together actors from widely varying disciplines to identify existing strategies and to develop and test out models of sustainable living fit for day-to-day life. In 2011, ÜBER LEBENSKUNSTwill turn the city of Berlin into a showcase for artistic projects that bring together culture and sustainability with an event series, campaigns and urban installations and the festival itself from 17 to 21 August.
I take part as food producer within cultural and social networks within the project Vorratskammer(pantry).
Thank you Myvillages.org

Philosophy cheese workshop at Grizedale Arts UK

8-9/06/2011

Artist Fernando García Dory, director of the Shepherds School in Spain, has worked with local farmers and food producers to create a unique cheese for Coniston. Come and try it along with a good selection of other British cheeses. Food historian Ivan Day will also give an illustrated talk on the history of cheese and matched wines will be available to try.This event is a result of Migratory Dairy School cheese making workshops held in Coniston and Broughton and the cheese has been stored for the last three months in Ruskin’s Icehouse at Brantwood.
Register here
On Saturday a conversation with art directors Adam Shuterland and Alistair Hudson, and Frieze and Art Papers contributor Chris Fitte Wassilak around the invention of tradition, politics of food and art and its social placement will be streamed online and registered in Grizedale Arts website

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Visit to Sami Reindeers Herders, Lappland, Sweden

18-24/06/2011

Thanks to the support of SlowFood - Indigenous Terra Madre, I join in Jokkmokk the meeting perfectly organised by the Sami People, the last indigenous people of Europe. They have played and important cultural work of re-appreciation of their identitarian values and symbols, arriving to have even theur own parliament, parallel to the Swedish State.
You can read more here
We had as well a meeting of the board + councillors of WAMIP - World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples.

European Shepherds Meeting , Ermelo, The Netherlands

17/06/2011

We finally can call for the next European Meeting of Shepherds, 15-17 June, hosted and organised by the NL friends. We expect to move forward the idea of establishing a more formal network of extensive shepherds and herders in Europe.
This is an important step since World Gathering Pastoralists of Segovia 2007, the European Meeting of Sentein, ( Ariege- France) and the mobilisations of last years against EID, mandatory vaccination, trashumance, and other specific issues, showing the need of an specific framework aknowledging the specific reality of mobile pastoralism in Europe.

United to our european colleagues, we would like to continue demanding a specific legislation for extensive livestock farming within EU agrarian policy framework. Therefore we call for the stablishment of this network together with the german, dutch, austrian, greek, french, portuguese, romanian and hungarian friend organisations.

Vereinigung Deutscher Landesschafzuchtverbände e. V. (VDL)
Bundesverband Deutscher Ziegenzüchter e. V. (BDZ)
British Agriculture Bureau representing NFU, NFUS, NFU Cymru, UFU.
Landelijke Werkgroep Professionele Schapenhouders Secretariaat
Federacion Estatal de Asociaciones de Pastores ( FEP)
National Federation of Agricultural Producers in Romania

What shepherds have to do with a National Park?

16/06/2011

Presentation in the Training Seminar for National Park Guards, organised in Cangas de Onis. It has been the 1st time that the issue of livestock and shepherds, already in that land for thousands years, is included amongst the themes in the program for future park guards.

Presentation at Noche de Luna Llena - Segovia

11/06/2011

The night of full moon at Segovia will host a program of artistic interventions and cultural activities curated by Rafa Doctor and Tania Pardo. At 22 h , Plaza Mayor, together with a market of organic products there will be a introduction to INLAND project. You can download the program here

Workshop "Country stays" - Master on Public Art - UPV

27-28/05/2011

This two days I gave this seminar on art and agroecology. There was a theoretical part in Valencia University, and next day , with the 30 pupils, we had the chance to go and know closer the very interesting case of the village of Carricola, of 83 inhabitants, that was pioneering on organic farming in the 80´s , and now holds different interesting projects, taking a clear stand in another paradigm of rural development. They also invited some artists to intervene in the sourroundings, a serie of high-impact sculptures that nevertheless atract a lot of visitors. I plan to keep collaborating with Carricola specially re-orienting that perceptive on the possible inputs from artists. Register for the seminar here
Thanks to Jose Luis Albelda, Maite y Susana Cháfer, UPV
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Presentation at DG Agri , Brussels

20/05/2011

I will take part in the next meeting of the Advisory Board on Sheep and Goat, of the Comission of Agriculture of the European Union, representing Spanish Shepherds Federation
My goal is to call for an legislation modification that aknowledges extensive animal husbandry with an specific framework.
I still remember that DG Agri Eurocrat saying once " at our eyes, pastoralism doesn´t exist".
Thanks to the European Foundation on Nature, Culture and Pastoralism and the European Environmental Bureau
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Cheese Mobile Production Unit at Vorratskammer, Berlin

9 - 16/05/2011

A workshop and production time in Berlin part of the überlebenskunst´s project, you can check the program and read more here.
15 people attended, together with Cheese Master Jesus Gutierrez, I invited for the occasion. We had an overview on cheesemaking as well as some insight in this sophisticated bio-technology. We produced near 70 kg cheese from 600 litres milk, cow, sheep and goat.
Now its stored to be distributed in August. The fresh goat cheese will be tasted in 15 days by workshop participants.
The CPMU 1 went good, mixing its functions of container, classroom and propaganda stall.
Thanks to MyVillages.

Starts new yearly course of the Shepherds School

3/05/2011

In the mountains of Asturias, north of Spain, I open the 5th Course of Initiation to Mountain Pastoralism of the Shephers School.
This year, 4 pupils were selected from the applicants to receive the training. In May, they will stay together in a mountain village, receiving classes from experts going from Culture of Shepherds, Mountain Ecology, to Veterinary or Cheese making.
From June untill September, they will join their shepherd-teachers in the mountan cabins, and share daily life in direct transmission of knowledge.
Good luck.
Thanks to the Regional Government, National Parc, Municipalities of Amieva and Cangas de Onis and Onis.

INLAND: artists training camp, in Tierra de Campos, Castilla-Leon

29/04/2011 - 01/05/2011

During 3 days, all artists selected for the Campo Adentro- Inland residency program are conveyed in Amayuelas this formerly abandoned, clay built, little village in the middle of Castilla plainlands. Hosting different agroecological projects of great interest, its now headquarters of Plataforma Rural grassroots organisation.
Anthropologists, experienced artists, farmer unionists will talk to them, to provide some coordinates and context of the current situation of the countryside in Spain and Europe, as cartography for their further inmersion in the rural context.
They seemed quite transformed by the experience. This is my 1st trial of a broader training scheme for artists, to be developed with the 5 Fine Arts Universities that support in Campo Adentro
To know more about the comissioned artists look here

Cheese Making Workshop at Grizedale Arts

18-24/04/2011

Coniston Institute will host more than 100 years on, a mobile dairy school, a project than John Ruskin envisioned as a new future for Cumbrian farmers.

Together with cheese maker Martin Gott, a local award winning sheep cheese producer, I will run this first 2 courses. Together with the third one in early summer, I will have worked together with local farmers, hobbyists and cultural practicioners. From the preferred cheese of each group I will make an average calculation of its characteristics ( such as texture, taste, colour , form...) and will design a tailored cheese ad hoc for Cumbria. Probably named Ruskin Cheese or Commoners Cheese, will be later instaured as locally traditional with its corresponding message delivered with it.
To book call Grizedale Artson 015394 41050 or email maria@grizedale.org

Weekend gathering for selection of candidates for the Shepherd School
09-10/04/2011

All candidates interested on this 5th Course of Mountain Shepherding of the Shepherd School were called to attend a meeting with the shepherds-teachers, to know about the job, the course and the context. After an introduction of attendants, and interviews, followed by visits to shepherds in remote locations that could not leave the flocks alone, the selection was done. The new 4 pupils will now prepare themselves to be ready to start next 5th of May with the course, one month theory, and next four months practice, living with one shepherd in a hut in the mountains.
I published some months ago a visual presentation of the project available online at Collection of Minds.

From the margins: between art and dinamisation in rural contexts, presentations at AcVIC
08/04/2011

Art Centre AcVIC at Vic ( Barcelona) invites to present different groups that work on rural contexts around Catalonia, like Cal Gras, Campo Adentro, Centre d'Art i Natura, CACIS Forn de Calç, Idensitat, Nau Coclea, Priorat Centre d'Art.What reality do those who develop art projects find in contexts on the margins, away from the nucleus of decision and artistic display? In the course of our work as artists or managers, does art have any relationship with awareness, creating new audiences, or energising? How to build strategies for promotion and involvement in often dispersed and heterogeneous environments? Does the countryside need to create its own strategies and promotion?
Check more on the program at AcVIC website. Thanks to Ramon Parramon.

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Constituting Relations to Place: Talk Event at The Showroom, London
07/04/2011

The subtitle for this event is "Considering Nomadic Traditions in Relation to Contemporary Urban Mobility and Practice", and is part of PUBLIC RELATIONS: a series of talks and discussions curated by Artist Fellow Emma Smith as part of The Showroom’s Communal Knowledge participation programme.Guest speakers Fernando Garcia Dory (artist), Laura Marziale (Migrant Resource Centre) and Pooya Ghoddousi (architect and researcher) will join an open discussion chaired by Emma Smith (Artist) to explore notions of belonging, relation to place and the connotations of time, within global and local contexts and practices.
Check other info at The Showroom. Thanks to Emma Smith

Workshop on Art & Ecology, Foundation COAL, Natural Science Museum -Paris
30-31/03/2011

COAL organised together with the french Ministry of Ecology and Farming and the Ministry of Culture, this meeting of french actors together with speakers from other european countries in an attempt to scan the state of the art and stablish a common strategy for France. The connection with the Ministry authorities was inmediate, and I foresee further potential for common actions on the european debate on sustainability, culture and countryside.
Check the program and goals at Atelier Art - Ecologie de la Foundation COAL. Thank you Lauranne Germond and COAL friends

Presentation at Museum Vostell - Malpartida de Caceres
24/03/2011

Taking part in an interesting exchange session organised by the Peoples University Network of Extremadura, called Imagine_Up aiming to put together a group of diverse grassroots cultural initiatives of the region. The Vostell Museum hosts maybe the most important Fluxus collection, and Wolf Vostell carried a great example of involvement of artist within a community in a rural location. More info at ImaginUP. Special thaks to Universidad Popular Malpartida de Caceres, Juande y Sara Tena

Talking on/in land - JustMAD Art Fair
17/02/2011

At 16.00 will be presenting at Producer´s Desk event on Just Mad Art Fair paralell to ARCO:
"With a view to earning greater international visibility for the fair, Just Madrid will also be inviting independent curatorial bodies from around the world, collectives and individuals who are working to further the repercussion and diffusion of artists’ work, asking them to present various curated programmes over the four days of the event. These presentations will take place at their booths, at other spaces at the fair venue or even outside the actual fair itself, but the main thing is that they are developed with the public in mind and to tie in with the galleries and artists at the fair".
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Shepherds School published in new Rhyzom book - now available
25/02/2011

The "Trans-Local-Act - Cultural Practices within and across" book is out now. Edited by Doina Petrescu, Constantin Petcou, Nishat Awan, this book brings together a series of reflections and practices around issues of local and trans-local cultural production within different contexts in Europe, prompted through the agency of a collaborative and networked project called Rhyzom

All these cultures developed within local contexts are intrinsically related to political, economic, social and material aspects and to specific temporalities, spatialities, individual and collective histories and experiences. Like the whole Rhyzom project, the book is an attempt to create transversal links and connections within and across different local framings and to seize instances of the dynamic and complicated nature of notions of 'local' and 'culture' through multiple forms of practice, which address the critical condition of culture in contemporary society. In relations with 'local and 'trans-local', 'place' and 'culture', issues of conflict and contest, ecologies, politics and care practices, common and commonality, institutions and agencies are addressed.

The book is written by architects, artists, activists, curators, cultural workers, educators, sociologists and residents living in different rural and urban areas in Europe and is addressed to anyone concerned with the relation between culture, subjectivity, space and politics today.

I contributed with an essayand a description of the Shepherd´s School Project. Thank you Rhyzom for this great book. More info here
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Cheese making workshop - Uberlebenskunst Berlin
20/02/2011

This sunday 20th February I will run the 1st Workshop on Cheesemaking. It will be also the 1st testing of the recently produced Cheese Production Mobile Unit ( CPMU) for the Vorratskammer project of MyVillages in the framework of Uberlebenskunst at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
It will be at Skaminegg, Prenzlauer Berg, and only remain 2 vacant places, so if you are interested send an email to vorratskammer@myvillages.org

Talking on/in land - JustMAD Art Fair
17/02/2011

Is Art edible? , Norway
01/02/2011

"In Lom / Sognefjellet in Norway , a presentation on art that is concerned with food, food production and community building, focusing on the artist as a catalyst that sets
constructive processes in motion. In short, my idea is to present work from artists that might inspire the audience, in this case about a hundred local actors, from farmers to chefs to officials, on art that is concerned with local food production and how artists today just as well might give birth to dynamic processes whose output is something edible as finished products to be preserved and behold in galleries or in the public space". Via Erik Sjödin, thank you
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Works featured at January 2011 issue of ArtPapers Magazine
13/01/2011

Under the title "Beneath the bureaucracy, the beach", an interview and article carried by Chris Fite-Wassilak ended up in a very interesting process and conversation also on amateur cheesemaking and further beyond. Thank you Sylvie Fortin.

Press conference on next project on sustainable city cultural strategy
10/01/2011

Collaboration with Segovia 2016 European Capital of Culture team to develope next stage of Inland-Campo Adentro project. I will focus on developing a program on Landscapes tailored to suit the city ideal identity, and fascinated by its gardens and mountains.

Building a Mobile Cheese Production Unit at Berlin
21/12/2010 - 31/01/2011

In the framework of the art project Überlebenskunst launched by the art institution Haus der Kulturen der Welte, I join Vorratskämmer initiative of MyVillages, producing this device, that will bring mobility, pedagogic endeavours, cheesemakers problematic situation under current EU regulation and hopefully some good cheese. Next workshops in February and May. Exhibition opening in August 2011.Special thanks to Cecile Frappat.

Opened the Inland/Campo Adentro Artist residency Program
14/12/2010

From today till 14th Feb 2011, and finally, any artist interested on the rural realm can apply to the residency program. It has gained quite some attention internationally, with applicants from 14 different countries, unfortunately fluent spanish is required, quite essential to survive in remote villages where not much english is daily practised. But I hope any artist appart from language skills, with previous or current works on or in the rural, will send them, for the 2012 exhibition

Strengthening nomadic peoples alliance
18/11/2010 - 26/11/2011

Intense and exhausting days at Mera, Gujarat, India, with the Global Gathering of Women Pastoralists but very productive as well. The work of previous months on organising the gathering went well and even succeeded on having the WAMIP council meeting, nomadic peoples organisation created after the Segovia World Gathering of Nomadic and Trashumant Pastoralists in 2007, reviving the alliance. Thank you to MERA, IFAD, WISP, ILC and the Maldhari community.

Talk at Friday session of Public Works: on Nomadism
17/11/2010

At public works studio
1-5 Vyner Street
London E2 9DG
from 7 pm

Friday Session 42 will bring together two speakers who's work as artist and architect has led them to a close involvement with nomadic and pastoral cultures across the globe. Pooya Ghoddousi, Architect and researcher born in Tehran and currently living in London will present his work nomadic and transitional cultures. Fernando García Dory, artist and ecologist from Spain will introduce his practice and involvement with the global pastoral movement from setting up of a Shepherds School in Spain to organising a global gathering of pastoralists.

Friday Sessions are informal talks and presentations hosted by public works mostly on Friday evenings - but sometimes on a Wednesday - with invited guests and friends. Anyone is welcome. Beer is served.

Rolex Awards ceremony, Lausanne Training Centre
10/11/2010 - 12/11/2011

With the other finalists at Lausanne, Switzerland, an interesting opportunity to know the state of the art and recent developments on nanotechnology, neurology, robotics. Everyone attending is a library: astronauts, sea biologists, ethnobotanists...The guided visit to CERN is centered around dark matter

Field trip with Mallorca shepherds
02/11/2010 - 07/11/2011

Thanks to Fabric for Freedom Foundation I was able to check the reality of small farming and shepherds in Tramontana Range, in one of most prefered tourist destinations in Europe. Contrary to what I expected, the agrosystem is quite well maintained. After some visits and conversations, the possibility to start to work with wool from local red sheep breed takes shape.

Transalpine shepherds exchange
26/10/2010 - 31/10/2011

Guiding a group of 30 shepherds and local agents from different regions from Spain to visit their collegues in the Alps. Visits include the communities Friugli-Veneto ( Italy), Gorenjska košarica (Slovenia), Grossglockner - Oberes Mölltal (Austria) and the Bavarian Alps in Germany. Astounding places with precious mountain pastoralism cultures.

INLAND : International Conference on art, agricultures and countryside
26/10/2010 - 31/10/2011

The conference lasted for five days (from October 20 to 24, closure day) during which there was an exchange of experiences and points of view with the aim of strengthening and cross-linking networks working on the relationship between culture, territory and society.

200 participants, 35 experts and speakers, and 5 institutions took part in the 5-day conference.

It provided a space for reflection and transmission of information: the status of the rural question, recent theoretical research on art and landscape and the practice of contemporary artistic interventions in relation to the rural... by incorporating different disciplines such as rural sociology, social psychology, eco-design, demography, agricultural policy theory, etc. We will also have the testimonies of people from the countryside, as valuable as any other well-established knowledge. The presentations will be expanded through round-table meetings to encourage public participation, as well as specific working groups. The target audience will be diverse but with a common interest in exploring this new area of thought and action: artists and art students, cultural agents, curators and art critics, professors of various disciplines, rural sociologists, rural development workers, politicians, etc.

The Campo Adentro International Conference was organized in collaboration with the Museo de Arte Reina Sofia, where it took place for the most part. At the same time, various activities took place in other venues at different cultural institutions around the city.

To read more and the program, click here
To see pictures of all the events, click here