I HAVE A DREAM PROJECT by Shweta Bhattad A world-wide initiative of the Vancouver Biennale 2014-15 TENGO UN SUEÑO/ Spain by Virginia Lopez and Co At PACA_Proyectos Artisticos Casa Antonino
TENGO UN SUEÑO/ Spain 2014-2015 At PACA_Proyectos Artisticos Casa Antonino, Gijón, Asturias. Spain
developed by Virginia Lopez Artist Run Space: PACA_Proyectos Artísticos Casa Antonino
in collaboration with >Giovanni Lanterna , art restorer and member of PACA_Proyectos Artísticos Casa Antonino > Lorena Lozano, artist and biologist and Javi Martín members of Platform ecoNodos http://www.econodos.net : advising on the types of crops, planting and in the organization of the event >Neighbors from Cenero Trubia: sharing seeds, products, experiences and knowledge: Tino el Turrexón, Mario, Casa Manolo Eugenio., Maribel and Manolo, Paolino, Juan and Rosita, and many many others >El Tenderete de Cabranes: giving way in the monthly market Santa Eulalia de Cabranes for the dissemination of the project >Juanjo Palacios, artist and sound recorder: composing the audio for the final video http://www.juanjopalacios.com >Juan Pablo Torrente (bajaltura.com): aerial photography. http://www.bajaltura.com > Viveros Runza: donating plants for the sowing day. > friends , sowers and family This project has been subsidized by the Municipal Foundation of Culture and Popular University of Gijón.
links: VIDEO Tengo un sueño: http://www.vancouverbiennale.com/docume ntary-videos/i-have-a-dream-%E2%80%A2trubia-spain/ INFO about Tengo un sueño (EN): http://www.vancouverbiennale.com/learning -cases/i-have-a-dream-trubia-spain/ FACEBOOK > I Have A Dream Project https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Have-ADream-Project/1411957069058466?fref=ts >Tengo un sueño Project http://www.facebook.com/PacaProyectosArti sticosCasaAntonino INFO about PACA>Tengo un sueño (ES) http://www.pacaproyectosartisticos.com/livi ng-landscape/proyectos-en-curso/i-have-adream/ INFO about El paisaje agrario de Veranes: http://www.pacaproyectosartisticos.com/livi ng-landscape/proyectos-en-curso/el-paisajeagrario-de-veranes/
Concept As farmland is being reduced around the globe, “I Have A Dream” Global Community Project hopes to draw attention to farming practices and communities by inviting artists to collaborate with farmers to sow fields or grow gardens in the shape of “I Have a Dream” in their own language. This community-based project takes art out of the studio and into the community and use art to empower communities through farming and gardening. TENGO UN SUEÑO Trubia, Asturias/ Spain Project: Artist Virginia Lopez has developed this project in collaboration with the local community, other local artist and regional groups to exchange knowledge, memories and create internal links to the local community. Through the final video, they shared the various project phases through their participating in the Vancouver Biennale “I Have a Dream” Global Community Art Project, facilitated by the Biennale International Artist Residency artist, Shweta Bhattad.
Overview The project calls for moments of collective sowing, documentation and several meetings with the local community , other local artists and local regional groups. These meetings serve to exchange knowledge, memories and create internal links to the local community. They serve to reflect on the situation in the countryside and contemporary agriculture and its relationship with the city and increasing urbanization of the territory, we will discuss about landscape, understood as a cultural construction in constant transformation that we are all artifices and therefore responsible. Each of the phases of the project is published through PACA’s and Vancouver Biennale website, the facebook page and other digital media.
Some of the meetings will be held within the framework of the El Paisaje Agrario de Veranes, (spring 2015) project designed by Virginia Lopez in collaboration with Lorena Lozano (econodos) and Giovanni Lanterna which is subsidized by the Municipal Foundation of Culture and Popular University of Gijón. Process #THE PLACE/ THE FARM Tengo un sueño has been developed in Casa Antonino, Trubia, a small rural village in Gijón ´s peri-urban area, Asturias, Spanish north coast. Casa Antonino, is a traditional farmhouse, where we have recently move to and which we are restoring. It’s also a space for art education, collaborative cultural projects and artist residencies, focusing on the connections between art, environment and social issues: PACA_Proyectos Artísticos Casa Antonino. Therefore, I have a dream was also our dream. Asturias has been traditionally, a rural region, but from middle XIX c. the arrival of the coalmines changed its cultural landscape, mainly in the central area of the region. From 60’s last century, the increasing industrialization (harbours, steel factories…) has strongly affected all the nearby rural areas, creating economical and social disarrangement, massive emigration to the city, progressive abandon of familiar agriculture and aged population. Some of the consequences of this unsustainable progress are air and noise pollution, contaminated rivers and a deep city-land relationship wound.
La casería /The farmhouse in Asturias
Talk about la casería (the family farm) is talking about Asturias landscape, rural settlements, traditions, economy, rites… The house is the centre and the horreo or panera is its extension, which, together with other auxiliary facilities (barns, “llagares”, “tendeyones”…) are the ceilings: the vital core of peasant farm.
La casería has shaped much of the Asturias landscape, but today some of them are silent remnants that testify a recent agricultural past. Some neighbours are still farmers but many farms have been abandoned, other plots occupied by “residential housing” and the population has aged.
La casería is a house and an economical resource. It also has a strong social tradition, cultural and ritual dimension by means of festivals and shared activities with other neighbours and farmers. It’s not just a building, but a workplace and space for socialization.
Marc Augè talks about pedagogical dimension of ruins: they make us feeling the time fragility and to become aware of history.
The landscape in this area has undergone major changes over the last 60 years due to increasing industrialization and urbanization.
The main goal would be to encourage the recolonization of these territories facilitating agroforestry production activities, promoting experimental forms of rural repopulation and the return of young people, reviewing the idea of city, rural areas and urban periphery. Fabio Converti, Piera Della Morte, Civic uses and identity of rural heritage: the investigating landscape. “UNISCAPE, Conference materials� 18-19 oct. 2010. Florence. pp 84-87.
The territory has been used as mere technical support of economic activities and functions, which are placed according to increasing rationality. Rationality that is detached from any sense of place, environmental qualities or cultural identity.
Tengo un sueĂąo has been developed in Casa Antonino, an old caseria, as part of its new vocation: to generate environmental and ecological attitudes trough arts and collaborative cultural projects.
TENGO UN SUEÑO Collective Sowing Day and growing process. Taking care!
We are happy to be part and responsible of the new Casa Antonino’s life. Utopia is necessary to shape the world we live in, so we have decided to sow the dream collectively. For doing so, we organized a Collective sowing day last 21st September. #COLLECTIVE SOWING DAY: 21.09.2014 The project began with a Day of Collective Sowing in PACA’s “Pumarada” (apple tree land : the apples are used to produce a tradional local drink well Known in Asturias: the cider, and some home-made ciders – produced in collaboration with a neighbor, Jose Manuel, have been drunk during the sowing day :
We prepared the land, friends and neighbours helped with the crops and gave to us different kind of seeds from their orchards: Laila, Lorena, Mario, Tino, Javi, …and many others.
It was a sunny day and a lot of people came to share their dreams and seeds with us. Tino el Turrexón, together with other neighbours and farmers from Trubia, such as Mario, Juan… helped our guests to sow. Also, a small market was set up in order to show and sell some local products of: Tino el Turrexón, Maribel and Manolo, Natalia and Eduardo vegetables, and Nel Cañedo special Gamonéu cheese from the Picos de Europa Mountains (Asturias) where he is working. as assistant pastor and cheesmaker. There was time to talk, to eat together and relax, Casa Antonino, after many years of silence, was again alive!
The schedule of the day was: h.11.00_ arrival and informal presentation of the project h.11.30_ planting – seeds were already in PACA, but a lot of people brought their own seeds or do exchange in our small seed bank h.13.00_lunch with home made and local products (potato omelettes, vegetable soaps like porrusalda, tomato sauces and Salad) and homemade cider.
From here, infinitely grateful to all neighbors of Trubia, Cenero, for their welcome, availabilities and generosity: Tino el Turrexòn has given us the seeds of : berza (a local variety), cabbage weevil, parsley and turnips, besides endless advice; Jose Manuel has invited us, last year , to his llagar,(where the cider is produced completely hand made ) and explained the whole process with passion, It’s the cider out there that we offered the sowing day; and all make us feel part of a community (Mario, Paulino, Casa Naviella, Casa Fombona, Casa Falla, Irundina and family, Maribel and Manolo, Tomás and family….).
The growing process/13.10.2014
The growing process/09.11.2014
#FROM SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER we were taking care of the sowing, and during the last month of November 2014 we had some meetings that were recorded for the final video (re-cognizing the territory, the situation of many traditional farmahouses in the area, collecting the apples in PACA`s apple orchard and producing hand made cider). During the spring 2015 within the project “Agricultural landscape in Veranes”, we’ll have more mettings: with the young cheese maker Nel Cañedo, to talk about the difficulties of enterprice a farm nowadays, talking about his experience as a sheeper in the high mountains of Los Picos de Europa and also about his future projects related with a curious initiative : The Sheepers School, where he has studied to become a professional cheese maker after finishing his university studies in History of Art. A meeting with the Neighborhood Association and the environmentalist Association Les Caseries / El Texu which work together in order to resolve and discuss about local-regional and European policies about ecology, agriculture and landscape. A meeting with local farmers and neighbors to understand their point of view about contemporary agriculture and landscape, but also to talk about the Caseries, the traditional farmhouse in Asturias, which is being abandoned because of the urbanization and industrial process. This is also a cultural process which we would like to analyze in deep.
#THE VIDEO The final display is in the form of videos and images which artists have uploaded from all over the globe. These images and videos will be installed in a wooden structure where different video screens, one for each country will be displayed in Biennale, where the videos will keep running showing the process of the project. This is the video from Tengo un sueño:
http://www.vancouverbiennale.com/document ary-videos/i-have-a-dream-%E2%80%A2-trubiaspain/
PACA_Proyectos ArtĂsticos Casa Antonino The project continues... Cultivating Utopia
El paisaje agrario de Veranes
veranes
AdadĂa de Cenero, GijĂłn, Asturias. Spain
trubia
Landscapes are spaces of embodiment and mutability. Landscapes are events.
PACA_ Proyectos Artisticos Casa Antonino is a “no-budget” project who focus in contemporary art, environmental practices and art education. The objectives of PACA_Proyectos Artisticos Casa Antonino are to promote the introduction of environmental and ecological attitudes in the arts; to conduct training, production, diffusion and education; to create collaborative networks of local, national and international institutions, universities, associations, foundations and cultural institutions; to enrich the local cultural structures by encouraging dialogue between artistic communities and other members of society. PACA creates, organizes, manages and produces cultural projects; conducts educational and didactic activities with social, democratic and comprehensive objectives; carries out theoretical studies, technical investigations and field works on artistic and environmental themes; organizes curated site-specific exhibitions and art events; documents, diffuses and communicates cultural and social projects using publishing and digital tools. Currently PACA Proyectos Artisticos Casa Antonino is run by Virginia Lopez, and aims to enlarge with participative collaborations.
Pierre Donadieu asks in his book en Campagnes urbaines (1), what happens to those villages and cities not so famous whose fields and landscapes haven’t been portrayed by Van Gogh’s brush stroke? Nobody has declamed their virtues and the tourism has never arrived. In which way the developement has arrived to these urban periheries , how the agriculture and the urban land has evolutioned and in which direction? What kind of relationship has been stablished between the country and the city? What are the uses for these spaces and what people who live in , or just visit them, perceive and expect from them? At PACA we try to reflect about these kind of questions, with an interdiciplinary approach. That’s way Tengo un sueño continues during this spring 2015 within the framework of “El paisje agrario de Veranes”: a series of workshops and lectures that aim to reflect in a participative way about the rural and periurban landscape : there will be time to talk, to walk, to collect (memories, plants, objects, sounds...), to draw...living landscape!
(1)
Pierre Donadieu, Campagne urbane, Donzelli editore, Roma, 2013.
Virginia Lopez Directora de proyectos de PACA_Proyectos Artisticos Casa Antonino CamĂn de Fonfria 85, Trubia-Cenero 33393 GijĂłn. Asturias. Spain tel: +34 985167898 / cel: +34 636068914 e-mail: virginialopezvl@gmail.com
www.pacaproyectosartisticos.com pacaproyectosartisticos@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/PacaProyectosArtisticosCasaAntonino