Fernando García-Dory / INLAND
For Neighborhood Academy / Nachbarschaftsakademie – Prinzessinnengarten 2016 Fernando Garcia-Dory proposes the extension and application of INLAND method and agency. Envisioned as an adaptable and replicable para-institution*, INLAND is a project about an organization for social and cultural transition towards sustainability, and a collaborative platform.
The countryside is where some of the most pressing issues of our time are being played out: acculturation, autonomy, ecological models and food production, the enclosure of the commons, and the possible resurgence of functional art.
INLAND (2009–present) is an ongoing, mobile work that investigates the role of territories, geopolitics, culture, and identity between the countryside and the city. It is as well a tool to focus on the economics of art and land and the ways we interact with the biosphere. This provides an entry point to think about the „growth and appearance of social formations, from a social movement to a state to a multinational chain.” It is a methodology for the analysis and interpretation of current trends in the relations between society and the environment, as well as a tool for processing alternative cultural narratives to re-understand conflict, empowering citizens to take collective action. It builds over art processes to envision and sustain living structures, and to circulate them through the cultural field.
Extending his research into the German context, García-Dory will work between the one space in Berlin city (NGBK and Prinzessinengarten) and one in a farm in Brandenburg, transforming them into workstations and INLAND extension offices. Different actions and a program of discussions and exchange amongst different actors, from shepherd leaders to academics, artists or policy makers will start by analyzing the history of cultural readings of the rural in Germany, the current situation and a projection of possible futures. This knowledge will be articulated into practice through different workshops intended to offer young artists an extension of conventional artistic curriculum, to define new roles for the artist.
* “The concept of a para-institution could refer to the cultural tactic of creating a symbolic and functional structure to host expanded artistic activities. Para-institutions are based in the field. They are polyvalent specialist mobile units working in emergency contexts. Para-institutions can operate in relation to an “official” institution, i.e. a state or a company, thereby (drawing the veil of (socially legitimate power) over (themselves). In this way, para-institutions exist beside or near an official institution(,) while at the same time, against(– )taking on a confrontational, dialectic position towards that institution. A para-institution resembles the institution, using mimetic, camouflage and mirroring (manoeuvers), but also aims to be beyond, for example subverting the existing labour-life relation or the hierarchy in established conventional institutions. Para-institutions, as precautionary form, can operate as a secret or semi-secret society ( such as the Fabians or the Bilderberg Group). They can be multiple and grow to a dimension of a para-state, as Herzbollah” F.G. Dory 2014
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