Other knowledges as resistance to monocultures of the mind

There is a direct relationship, says scholar and activist Winona LaDuke, between the loss of biodiversity and the loss of cultural diversity. Losing the ability to connect to and understand the land are in themselves acts of desertification.

Based on the idea that valuing other forms of knowledge needs to happen in order to develop new empathies and new sensitivities in relation to humans’ relationship with nature, this talk will focus on Belalcázar, Spain, where I have been working during the past seven years and it will look at art at the periphery through the works about the rural produced in these fieldworks.

In this talk Marina Velez Vago, Anglia Ruskin University, will investigate the idea that new values and re-valuing can emerge from working-with local farmers and shepherds and will look at these through the lens of the works produced as well as through conversations, pastoral walks and interventions. It will do so by looking at the contradictions of the periphery, allowing for them to coexist and staying with the discomfort without exercising exclusion.

Marina Velez Vago is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher based in Cambridge. UK.

Marina is an affiliate artist at Anglia Ruskin University, Faculty of Arts, Laws and Social Sciences and is a tutor at the University of Cambridge, ICE.

She is a member of the Dalvazza Group at SARN https://sarn.ch/research/dalvazza-group

She is also the founder and organiser of Cambridge Sustainability Residency, the Sustainability Art Prize and has co-edited ROAR, a book about art and sustainability.

Artist statement:

I am an Argentinian-Spanish artist and researcher based in Cambridge, UK. My art practice is informed by issues related to sustainability and I am interested in people's behaviour and the social construction of value/s. In my practice, the idea of value and worth act as the emergent that highlights traceability of more complex issues, mainly related to the problematics of the Anthropocene. I use photography and video to explore these as well as more ephemeral interventions such as conversations, pastoral walks and shared work.

Instagram @marinavelezvago

www.marinavelez.com

Event presented as part of the ARU Discover event series.