Fernando Garcia-Dory is on a conquistadorial quest: to transform the thousands of abandoned villages in rural Spain from wastelands into cultural sites, whether edible landscapes or artistic reconstructions of past agrarian cultures such as sheepherding. Last night he spoke at the David Brower Center in Berkeley -- named after the enviro-activist -- as part of a series of lectures on art and technology hosted by the Center for New Media at UC Berkeley, under the aegis of Ken Goldberg. Through a project in Spain called Inland, he is engaging artists and landscapers to reconstruct these villages in creative ways.
Garcia-Dory says we are in danger of losing our links with land, and he believes the human relationship with land has defined culture, or cultures. An artist and what's called an agroecologist, he said that more than 40 percent of food today is still produced by small farmers, whereas 30 percent is produced by agribusiness. His art projects tend to support the work of La Via Campesinos, a global organization of farmers who seek food sovereignty over what they grow and raise. By using art to create awareness of the importance of land -- even so-called wasteland or abandoned lands -- Garcia-Dory hopes to preserve what makes us human.
It was interesting that during the lecture, the agroecologist had lots of difficulty managing his digital presentation -- he was using a Mac portable -- and I wondered if he'd be more at home with a hoe or rake. During the question period, someone asked the audience if they had been raised in a rural area, and Garcia-Dory smiled and raised in hand.
I couldn't help thinking that being an artist-agroecologist is a lot more fun if not more rewarding than being a sheepherder or small farmer. What is culture and whether it needs to be preserved are far larger issues, though, and ones that the Spanish artist is boldly addressing.
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