Design and Research - RIBA Part 2
Selected works
E: sofiayanezpg@gmail.com
www.sofia-yanez.com
The Dam as a coronary Stent – The collage traces the relations of the colonial systems of the past to the present situation of landscape exhaustion. Photography
River Forgetfulness: Decentralising the Galicican Landscape
This project presents an interactive online interface as a response to the case of internal colonisation of Galicia in Spain, investigating several interventions built during Franco’s dictatorship on the Galician side of the river Limia, and their social, political and environmental implications on ecologies and communities in the present.
The Lindoso Dam will serve as the case study for the project, as it was built between the Spanish and Portuguese border in the 1990s. Although built during an apparent young democracy, it materialises as the stratification of the logic inherent in the colonial system as it was born under dictatorial laws in the 60s, through a transnational alliance formed between Portugal’s Salazar and Spain’s Franco. The concept of internal colony visualises a population that, despite being framed within the central region of the capitalist system, is a victim of models of exploitation typical of colonies. Including the control of administrative, juridic and legislative powers, but most importantly, the process of cultural alienation.
Access interface: https://artkhe.github.io/riverforgetfulness/
RCA website: https://2023.rca.ac.uk/students/sofia-yanezperteagudo/
Film: https://vimeo.com/837710542
Intervention Manual: https://issuu.com/rca-issuu/docs/ issueuploadmanual
Research Book: https://issuu.com/rca-issuu/docs/resbooka4
Institution: Royal College of Art, 2023
Location: Ourense, Galicia, Spain
Tutors: Margarida Waco, Imani Jacqueline Brown
Photography inside Open World, by Author, 2023
The Galician territory has been used as a resource of extraction by Spain over the centuries while controlled by foreign capital, which led to the inexistence of Galician people in power. The construction of the Dam triggered further abuse in the landscape, as it made locals abandon the area, the democratic government allowed the foreign cattle industry to openly pollute these reservoirs, making it impossible for any ecosystem to thrive. Ancient dynamics of collective ownership of the forest were raided by the regime and perpetuated by the democratic government in the name of progress and capitalism.
Through the interface, the user can access the ruins of what was one day and the collective and individual memories of the landscape. In response to the resistance to this policymaking, the interface offers geographic information such as technical and rigorous analysis of the dam mechanism, attempting to decentralise and grant agency back over these life-changing artefacts. The set of interactions is designed to enhance the agency of the user over the landscape, by revealing how these interior spaces look and function, power is redistributed. Glitches are allowed to exist as human and water behaviour coexist within the first-person character.
After several individual meetings with members of the community in person and on the phone, I decided to call all the people interested on commenting on the past and present issues that the dam generate. With the support of Entrimo’s major, we advertised the meeting on social media and in the streets and participation turned out to be really high. Entrimo and Lobios were the two villages up the valley that received most of the displaced people after they were expropriated.
The propaganda images translate to English as:
River Forgetfulness
Decentralising the Galician Landscape
Presentation + Round Table
25th of February
6.30 PM coffee and pastries
Research Project about infrastructure and resistance in the lands of the Limia River, under development by the Architecture student Sofia Yanez Perteagudo, at the RCA.
Location: Entrimo Townhall, Ourense
. 1 Basemaps: 1957 with pollution layer on
. 1 Basemaps: 1957 with pollution layer on zoom out
. 1 Basemaps: mechanism
. 1 Basemaps: policy
. 1 Basemaps: policy
https://artkhe.github.io/riverforgetfulness/
. 2 Routes: Marker with photograph over 2023, mechanism layer on
. 3 Objects: Church over Workshop community map
. 3 Objects: Bridge over Workshop community map
Screen-shots of user interactioninside the Open World by Author, 2023
https://artkhe.github.io/riverforgetfulness/
Photography inside Open World, by Author, 2023
https://artkhe.github.io/riverforgetfulness/
Access interface: https://artkhe.github.io/riverforgetfulness/
RCA website: https://2023.rca.ac.uk/students/sofia-yanezperteagudo/
Film: https://vimeo.com/837710542
Intervention Manual: https://issuu.com/rca-issuu/docs/ issueuploadmanual
Research Book: https://issuu.com/rca-issuu/docs/resbooka4
Native species Density
Quercus Robur , Castanea Sativa, Quercus Suber, Taxus, Fagus Sylvatica, Alnus Glutinosa, Salix Babylonica, Betula Pubescens, Fraxinus excelsior, Pinus Pinaster Carballo, Souto, Sobreiro, Teixo, Faia, Amieiro, Salguiero, Bidueiro, Freixo, Rumoroso
Alborada: A Post-Industrial Galician Landscape
The proposals Alborada and Green Desert investigate in depth the problems around eucalyptus plantations in Galicia. How did they arrive and why are they still in the land, how much surface do they occupy and why do they have such a terrible impact on the ecosystem. Trough this research, abuses to the local community and the landscape throughout Franco’s regime and the democracy are exposed.
The project was born in 2021 when the Spanish Government questions the extension of the permit to operate granted to ENCE, paper paste factory in the Ria of Pontevedra. Taking for granted that it would be cancelled in 2023, the intervention imagines an alternative furture for the estuary, while offering reparations and criticises the environmental policies inflicted on the landscape through an interactive interface.
Galicia produces 4 million tonnes of Eucalyptus wood yearly, 2 million are for exclusive supply of ENCE, paper paste factory translates in the occupation of. 500.000 hectares out of 2.9 million hectares of the total surface of the region are covered by Eucalyptus.
Eucalyptus trees were first brought to Galicia by a catholic missionary from Australia. The purpose of incorporating the species was to dry up wetlands to avoid plagues and bacteria. The current cosecquences . The region is the most humid in the Iberian Peninsula, although it has hosted 40% of the “wild”-fires in the last 20 years.
Institution:
Royal College of Art, 2022
Location:
Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain
Tutors:
Alon Schwabe & Daniel Fernández Pascual ADS3
Some characteristics presented by Eucalyptus plantations are; that they are mainly monocrops - very few species co-exist with them as they can have roots as deep as 60 metres underground which have enough strength to break rock and concrete in order to find water sources. When autochthonous species start a water competition with Eucalyptuses, they are bound to lose. Eucalyptus need very little maintenance and their leaves are toxic to most of the animal species, only Koalas have evolved to digest them. The reason behind their toxicity is that they can reach layers underground that are mainly composed of mineral rocks, therefore metabolising these up to their leaves. Their average height is 4060 metres and the flexibility of its trunk allows them to bend with the wind very easily and as a consequence they are pyrophytic, they spread fire very fast therefore became a risk to surrounding populations
Before the Civil War, Spain was a Republic and Galicia had an Autonomy Statute. During the dictatorship, Galician culture was extremely censored and oppressed, to a point in which anyone willing to defend the idea of a nation will be executed or exiled.
One of the strategies of the regime for censorship and control over Galician land was the implementation of a cellulose factory in the Estuary of Pontevedra.
The main supply for the factory is wood. Fast and cheap. Eucalyptus trees, previously used for hygienic social security and traditional medicine remedies, are now turned into a weapon to erase the native forest, its symbols, and links to the Celtic history and the people living in it.
Geological Timeline of Lourizan, by Author, 2022
1936- Spanish Civil War starts
1940- Road construction by Military Regime
2000- ENCE is sold to a private company
2020- Land usage permit cancelled by Central GovernmentForced closure and dismantling
2023- Alborada
ENCE was founded in 1965 by a dictatorial regime on top of public land, an estuarine tidal wetland serving a community of more than 15000 fisherwomen.
Ever since, it has been operating illegally, polluting the estuary and destroying the native forest. Through direct liquid spills onto the river and constant fumes the marine biodiversity and birdlife have decreased by 80%. Some of the leaked chemicals include sulfur dioxide, nitrogen sulfide, and nitrogen oxide after the cease of the use of mercury in the 2000s. After the end of the Dictatorship, democratic governments have kept supporting the existence of the 2 km long machine.
Due to continuous violation of environmental law, the concession for the use of the land has been recently denied and is expected to cease operations within 3 years. In this project, I want to explore the regeneration of the wetland and the forest. Recovering the ecosystem of the estuary through the implantation of a centre for the fisherwoen and the estuary made out of the remains of the industrial infrastructure.
Post-War Dictatorship
Post-Regime Democracy
The Intertidal relic, by Author, 2022
Green Desert, by Author, 2022
Green Desert
This projects explores the limits of forest policies and the different stories a tree can tell about them trough an interactive interface.
Social relationships are challenged by the removing the anthropocentric view to nature, in this interface, trees will speak human languages but also tree languages. Languages that don’t need to be heard but smelled, seen or electrically felt. I designed an abandoned tree plantation inspired in the one at Tambo Island, in the Ria of Pontevedra, where the military carried out several experiments after the civil war, and therefore stayed closed to the public up until today.
Alternating the opinions of the trees about what happened, I criticise forest management polices and the damages cause to the community and the other than human.
Proximities are challenged through different ways, the physical distance between the user of the interfaces and the landscape and the distance between the character and the trees within. As the character moves trough the island and getting closer to trees, different sounds capes are triggered and new information is presented.
Institution: Royal College of Art, 2022
Location:
Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain
Tutors: Keren Kuenberg Media Studies
·Recorded experience: https://youtu.be/l2Mp9aizSHI
·Download and play: https://www.sofia-yanez.com/greendesert
SOFIA
Design and Research - RIBA Part 2
Selected works
E: sofiayanezpg@gmail.com
www.sofia-yanez.com