World Earth Day

Group exhibition of short films organised by We Collective at Ottawa School of Art, 35 George St, Ottawa, Room 303, ON K1N 8W5, Canada on the 22nd April, from 15:00 to 16:45.

The Rural video was created from the experiences of the rural both in Belalcázar, Andalucía, where Marina works with farmers and shepherds; and her investigations in rural East Anglia, where she lives. Throughout the years, Marina developed a strong theoretical framework to support the extensive research and actions of working-with that she has been conducting in Belalcázar since 2012. Visually mapping out rural knowledges and cultures allowed for meaningful connections between theory, practice and field work, to develop; becoming cartographies of primary consideration as a way of resisting loss of value-diversity and de-valuing of other species, other knowledges and the environment.

Brining diverse elements into a quick frame transition and combining them with short moments of contemplation speak of life in the farm, where there is always too much to do, seen through the lens of human-non-human animals relationships, which are articulated through conditions of carnal empiricism and subjectivity, specifically in the case of Belalcázar’s complex problematic of desertification, ageing population and environmental and financial breakdown. This problematic was approached visually and intentionally employing Rosi Braidotti’s ideas of politics of affirmation and their potential to become people’s own regenerative force (Braidotti, 2011).

This short video traces attempts to cognise in a non exploitative manner and to seek a shift in value in the capitalist dominance of the planet by focusing on knowledges on the periphery. It wants to articulate a critical response to the negative conditions of the present, so as to contribute to the creation of alternatives, and the enactment of other possibilities, to look at possible futures not as utopias but as sources of energy that generate potentia and that allow people working in rural realities to act in the thick and ongoing here and now.