Cortijada Los Gazquez sits in a white, arid bowl some 3000 ft above sea level in the Sierra Maria mountains of Andalucía.
This is wild and arid country, a three-way, battleground between almond farming, rampant, non-native pines and the seemingly unstoppable effects of climate. Here I meditated on Tim Morton’s ideas on Being Ecological (Penguin Press, 2018).
The dirt track roads carry just the odd passing tractor. This is the land of the solitary, commuting farmer. A place of abandoned farmsteads, life easier in surrounding towns. You return as and when just to tend the crops. I walked for miles accompanied only by ghosts.
Today the price of almonds is set in California where vast fields of genetically modified trees produce for a global market. Ironically, these ‘unnatural’ trees are water hungry, and need massive irrigation systems. The only time in recent history that the global price of almonds rose to anything like that needed to maintain life long term in the Sierra Maria was briefly when Californian droughts brought the irrigation systems to a standstill.
So, it's not about fish or fishing, or, at least I don’t think it is........
This work arose from a winter residency at Joya Art and Ecology Centre housed in Cortijada Los Gazquez, lovingly rebuilt by Simon and Donna Beckman.
This is wild and arid country, a three-way, battleground between almond farming, rampant, non-native pines and the seemingly unstoppable effects of climate. Here I meditated on Tim Morton’s ideas on Being Ecological (Penguin Press, 2018).
The dirt track roads carry just the odd passing tractor. This is the land of the solitary, commuting farmer. A place of abandoned farmsteads, life easier in surrounding towns. You return as and when just to tend the crops. I walked for miles accompanied only by ghosts.
Today the price of almonds is set in California where vast fields of genetically modified trees produce for a global market. Ironically, these ‘unnatural’ trees are water hungry, and need massive irrigation systems. The only time in recent history that the global price of almonds rose to anything like that needed to maintain life long term in the Sierra Maria was briefly when Californian droughts brought the irrigation systems to a standstill.
So, it's not about fish or fishing, or, at least I don’t think it is........
This work arose from a winter residency at Joya Art and Ecology Centre housed in Cortijada Los Gazquez, lovingly rebuilt by Simon and Donna Beckman.
caught by the fish
