Fernando Garcia-Dory: INLAND Scotland
INLAND at SSW
Framed by the European project Frontiers in Retreat (FiR) and under a Scottish Sculpture Workshop (SSW) commission, artist Fernando Garcia-Dory applies the INLAND approach he has been developing in different places since 2010 – in this case to the Cabrach, a high moorland with grazing pastures, progressively abandoned, and enclosed by a private Estate.
Over the last two years, Fernando has connected with Rural Development agents working in the area, as well as Cabrach inhabitants and farmers. The project has looked at the content of the recently formulated Land Reform Act of Scotland, with its legal and political implications, in relation to possible applications within the rural community there.
INLAND - Tenant Farmer Exchange Residency 2017
As the project enters its final phase, tenant farmers of the Cabrach and farm cooperative members from Andalusia, Spain have been invited to participate in an exchange residency. From the 1st-4th of March 2017, farmers of the Cabrach and SSW will host members from the Spanish cooperative who created a landless farm workers union (S.O.C) in the 1980s as part of a campaign to highlight inequalities in a region of huge historical private Estates. The three day exchange programme includes visits to Cabrach tenant farms and areas of interest, as well as social gatherings and meals. Two public conversation and presentation events will also be held. One will be held in the Cabrach with the Cabrach Community Association (CCA – Cabrach) and one in Glasgow with the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA – Glasgow).
The final outcome of the project will be the documentation of the discussions and debates amongst farmers (such as how to build collectivity over the concept of peasant - campesino, a term that is offensive in English and a politically reclaimed position in French and Spanish). Finally Garcia Dory will produce a series of alternative didactic charts for field researchers from a semi-fictional John Hatton Institute speculating with a potential situation in the Cabrach and the Land Reform Act implementation.
Background
During his research Garcia Dory established contact with the rural development researchers from James Hutton Institute, and looked at the process, limits and promises of the vision that field work technicians can trigger in a certain place with the community that inhabits it. Subsequently, he carried conversations with Cabrach inhabitants and farmers, and looked at the content of the recently formulated Land Reform Act of Scotland, with its legal and political implications, in relation to possible applications within the rural community there.
In March 2016, the project had a first moment of recognition of the layers of history and microstories laid over the geological strata of these ancient hills, represented in a guided walk with a farmer and a geologist, and the State's Head Gamekeeper and part of a series of landscape drawing exercises in plein air, bringing together international visitors and locals. The route traversed lost paths, resulting in an interrupted walk, depicting a damaged landscape. A press note about the action was sent to the local media.
The farm cooperative from Andalusia, Southern Spain was created by landless farm workers union ( S.O.C) in the 80´s as part of a campaign to highlight inequalities in access to land in a region of huge historical private Estates, that involved land occupation for collective cultivation and other innovative social and economical forms. This methodology is based on Paulo Freire "From Peasant to Peasant" method of exchange in non-hierarchical situations.
For more information please contact: yvonne@ssw.org.uk / 01464 861372
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