Happening

June, 2018
New Curriculum | Asturias, Spain

Collaborators:
Chiara Sgaramella
Sébastien Tripod

Hosted by:
INLAND (Campo Adentro)

This happening, was conceived and performed in the context of the New Curriculum programme promoted by the Inland collective. The work is an invitation to embody different human and non-human agents that inhabit the Picos de Europa mountain range in order to equally represent their perspectives, interests and needs. In fact, Digesting tensions was the result of a week-long exploration of the high summer pastures hosting Inland's flock of goats and sheep. Accompanied by shepherd Nel Cañedo Saavedra, we were introduced to the complexity of the mountain ecosystem, its variable meteorology and rich biodiversity. The pastures we explored are located at the border of the Picos de Europa national park, a conservationist institution founded in 1918, whose relationship with the shepherds and their lifestyle, result of centuries of adaptation to the environment, is often problematic.

By enacting a conversation, where both a shepherd, a National Park representative and a wolf -among others- have the same platform of dialogue, we attempted through our performance to collectively reflect on different questions: can art be a fertile ground in which both traditional and academic knowledge systems can be assembled to grasp the complexity of the rural world? Could an expanded notion of empathy help us create new multi-species interactions and alliances in a context of ecological crisis? How might a more poetic and nuanced approach to eco-social issues contribute to build a more balanced relationship between human cultures and their ecosystems?