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Paper short abstract:

With environmental uncertainty in Catalonia’s countryside growing, the Festival Natures in La Noguera (central-western Catalonia) is a creative hub of hope and reflection on belonging to the land. We explore the festival’s ideas on cultural ecology, zero-waste art and vocabulary for a new rurality.

Paper long abstract:

Since the last decade, environmental uncertainty has dramatically increased in Catalonia’s countryside, mainly due to rising temperatures, wildfires and a significant demographic decrease. This scenario threatens the existing cultural ecology, the cultural memory of Catalan rural universes and their forms of belonging. However, a new and dynamic Catalan rurality is emerging to counteract such uncertainty with lively projects that shape the collective consciousness. Exemplifying this, the Festival Natures (2019-present) takes place in Catalonia’s central-western region called La Noguera. Located in a formerly-abandoned chicken farm, the festival space operates as a creative lab and residency to forge new values anchored to the land, decentralise art, create zero-waste art and inspire new ways of experiencing nature.

This paper focuses on the festival activities as a philosophical and practical proposal for re-discovering “the homeland of our thoughts” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 24) and the “vernacular landscape” as “local custom, pragmatic adaptation to circumstances, and unpredictable mobility” (Jackson, 1984, p. xii). By looking at the festival’s activities, new terms for belonging emerge. For instance, from Plantacció by Núria Costa emerges the word cugula. This term, which refers to wild oats and is a Catalan female name, embodies the resilience of being in a hostile environment, perennially finding new ways of becoming. We examine these interpretations through in-depth interviews with the festival curators and practitioners, aiming to answer the following questions: How does the festival approach environmental uncertainty? Which words and dialogue on belonging stem from the festival? Does the festival encourage a life project?