Tabacalera Promoción Del Arte Embajadores, 51. Madrid
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Tabacalera Promoción del Arte Embajadores, 51. Madrid Chantal Maillard From ecology to ecosophy 03 Exhibition Organised by Eva Lootz Subdirección General de Promoción de las Bellas Artes Ministerio de Educación Cultura y Deporte Curator Isabel Tejeda Coordination Raúl Alonso Sáez Coordination Assistant Ruth Castaño Exhibition design Aurora Herrera Raquel Gutiérrez Camera Operator Francisco José Gómez Video editing Adolf Alcañiz Photographic copies Cloro!la Digital Exhibition set-up Artec Exposiciones Power point Eva Lootz Marta Alcalde Graphic production Vintec Audio-visual materials Salas Audiovisual salt 10 Lighting copper 16 Intervento Transport water 22 DobelArt electricity 32 Insurance Martínez y Tríbez Communication José María Parreño The Salt Poem 10; Water Sutra 24 Conchita Sánchez Isaías Griñolo Cancer 42 Juan Cobos Wilkins Culture against Contamination Manifesto 43 Catalogue Texts Eva Lootz Questions to José Manuel Naredo 44 Juan Cobos Wilkins Isaías Griñolo Isabel Tejeda And beyond, on the other side of the Earth: Eva Lootz Chantall Maillard the language of water 60 José Manuel Naredo José María Parreño Isabel Tejeda Coordination Raúl Alonso Layout grá!ca futura Photographs in Tabacalera Andrés Arranz Manuel Blanco Communication Conchita Sánchez Paloma Ballesteros MINISTERIO DE EDUCACIÓN, CULTURA Y DEPORTE Published by © SECRETARÍA GENERAL TÉCNICA Subdirección General de Documentación y Publicaciones © Eva Lootz, VEGAP, Madrid, 2016 © de los textos, sus autores © de las imágenes, sus autores NIPO: 030-16-380-9 Depósito legal: M-11790-2016 2 The song of the earth Chantal Maillard There is no need to mention justice where injustice doesn’t exist, nor tolerance where there is mutual respect. Nor would it be necessary to speak of ecology if it weren’t for the need to defend an eco-system in peril. Yet, is ecology the answer to the problem? Whether we like it or not, the term «ecology» de!nes us. It is the result of an anthropocentric concept that distinguishes between human beings and sets us apart from the rest of the planet. Kitarô Nishida’s critical re"ection on the ethics of human rights could be extrapolated to ecology: such ethics, he said, are incapable of de!nitively solving the problems of the world because they form part of a dichotomic understanding whereas the problems between human beings must be resolved through vacuity, that makes it possible to understand each other from the same. The protection of nature, children and animals is the paternalistic expression of a tradition rooted in the control and domination of the environment, based on the Biblical idea that the earth is at the service of «man». Taking a leaf out of Raimundo Panikkar’s book we should speak not of eco-logy but of eco-sophy. Rather than dominating and protecting, we should return to feeling, hearing, smelling and even understanding by smelling, knowing by feeling. Smell the grass and walk on it the way a temple is walked on in the East: barefoot. Return to oikos: the house, the most common. Oiko- sophy: wisdom about the house, the habitat, which is not what we possess but what we form part of. So!a instead of logos: wisdom rather than learning, integration rather than discourse. Intuitive wisdom from the common root, in which others, the other, is understood in likeness. Conscious wisdom, not understanding; from the moist depths, not from the dryness of the mind. Wisdom of oikos: ecosophy. From ecology to ecosophy Chantall Maillard 3 4 Acknowledgements Archivo Provincial Histórico de Huelva; Colección fotográ!ca Compañía Río Tinto Marta Alcalde; Adolf Alcañiz; Raúl Alonso; Kanako – Manuel Agujetas; Joaquín Burghalter; Juan Cobos Wilkins; Pepe Gómez; Isaías Griñolo; Raquel Gutiérrez; Fernando López García; Chantal Maillard; Carlos Martínez Frías; Juan Carlos Melero; José Luis Montero; José Manuel Naredo; Tony Ortiz; José María Parreño; José María Ródenas; Ramón Salazar; José Sierra; Francisco de la Vega This exhibition was possible thanks to the collaboration of Iberinox 88 and RGH Mayoristas de hierros y metales Eva Lootz «... wasn’t it rather an escape route The Song of the Earth is a Hannah Darboven, whom that was being glance at the current state herself confessed that instead of of the planet; recounted reading novels, she developed created to get away through copper, salt, water a penchant for maths books, in “our” own way to and electricity. Elena Asins for algorithms The echo of a music composed before anyone else and Esther undertake a line of slightly over a century ago Ferrer for the freedom of reverberates in the title, the poking fun at the traditional art complicity with the symphony of the same name offered to her by Zaj. by Gustav Mahler, for which In my case, it was those “other”?» the composer was inspired by “other” cultures studied a series of works by Chinese in anthropology that poets such as Li Tai-Po or have fascinated me since Wang Wei, all masters of what adolescence. Ever since that current-day, young sociologists conference on pygmies that would term “luxurious my mother took me to, my poverty”. enthusiastic reaction to which This exhibition is intrinsically led her to register me with the linked to an early intuition, Friends of Ethnology Society; that more or less coincides I was thirteen or fourteen with my early years in Spain back then… in which a first trip to Riotinto From that moment on I played a central role as it never missed a single one reaffirmed my suspicion that of the conferences given by the earth’s elements and their ethnologists returning from properties precede ideas as their exploration trips in the the orchestrators of human splendid hall of the Imperial destinies, that is, it is the Palace given over to the materials that “make up the Museum of Ethnology where, world” and prefigure the history by the way, Moctezuma’s of mankind, as the earth always headdress is kept, resting comes first and humans second; discreetly in one of the display we are a late species that needs cases back then, whereas to adapt and indeed does adapt nowadays it has its very own to what it finds on earth. sort of chapel, a place of Over time I’ve come to pilgrimage for all Mexicans understand that the world passing through Vienna. view, as conveyed by history is It could be said that plagued with blind spots and anthropology (and the the fact that some parts are ethnology museums bear never seen as they lack words witness to this) was invented to has always caught my attention. create a dividing line between I believe that the female the civilised, what is “ours” and artists of my generation, by the “other”, the “primitive”, to rejecting the models society thus highlight the fact that it is had prepared for us to identify “us” who handle the discourse, with, have been pushed relegating the others to passive towards atypical and marginal objects; but for the women territories, like for instance who were, to put it one way, Mines of Riotinto, Corta Corta Atalaya, undated. Atalaya, partial view Archivo Histórico (undated). Photographic Provincial de Huelva collection Compañía Río Tinto > Detail of Corta Atalaya, Riotinto (Huelva). May 2014. © Foto E.L. 6 The song of the earth The song of the earth Eva Lootz 7 “second-class citizens” and only Hence, my first work reflects marginally formed part of that an attention to the processes, “us” wasn’t it rather an escape the works are the result of route that was being created to rudimentary manipulations, a get away in “our” own way and catalogue of verbs that denote undertake a route of complicity “making” prevails: to cut, to with the “other”? fold, to stick, to wet, to tie, Cases like that of Margaret to crease, to pull, to melt, to Mead the great anthropologist assemble. who married a tribal chief Naturally, this converged with provide food for thought. a certain art trend at the end In any case, as an adolescent of the sixties, that of recording I was more interested in fox the traces left, the indexing hunting in the Mongolian of art, along with the glorious grassland, in how Eskimo liberation thanks to John Cage, canoes were built or the songs Mauricio Kagel or Marcel of the Nambikwara than Duchamp of being able to the adult conversations that make art out of anything, of not surrounded me or the society having to be able to draw apples dances I was obliged to attend. or nudes. So why didn’t I go on to become But that was in the early an anthropologist? Because of seventies and a long time has an innate wish to make. gone by since then. But to make in a way that had In this exhibition, three decisive nothing to do with the demands matters and one invention that to produce. is the consequence of them are at play: And above all: I didn’t want to acquire academic knowledge or become an expert in the Copper, salt, water classifications of the so-called and electricity “savages”, but rather I wanted Nobody currently questions to make in a “savage” way and the fact that fossil fuels are there was a certain element the strategic resource par of violence and rejection of excellence, and that the purpose tradition in it. of modern-day wars is to ensure To make each thing’s potential access to and ownership of oil blossom, which required as a limited resource that is meticulous observation, exactly running out … as the so-called “primitives” But water and copper are hot did, so at a given point I must on its heels in terms of future have decided that I was my very strategic importance.