Can contemporary art shape the future of politics?

The seventh edition of the Berlin Biennale took place between April and June 2012. The question that heads this text was the premise with which this event began. The idea that the Polish curators Artur Żmijewski and his associate Joanna Warsza had was not new. An example is the participation of the German artist Joseph Beuys at Documenta in Kassel, whose work focused on an organization bureau for direct democracy through popular voting in 1972. On the other hand, in 1974, the exhibition of works at the Venice Biennale was suspended due to protests by young people against the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

 Here, in the Spanish state, when politics in the 1970s began to talk of consensus, culture continued to talk of rupture. After the death of Franco, there were ateneos, occupations, strikes, and counterculture groups. In this period, people did not wait for democracy to be designed for them, but made democracy in a continuous, transversal, supra-partisan, and creative way. This heterogeneous multitude was called Hidra Democrática. It was thanks to their actions that, in the heart of the Transition, hegemonic routes between the political, social, and cultural spheres were broken.

Between these historical examples and the question posed by the curators of the Berlin Biennale, there was a popular uprising in the Arab world, another in southern Europe, and the most mediatized uprising resulting from the occupation of the New York Stock Exchange, also known as the Occupy movements.

Culture in the squares

At the end of 2011, the curators of the 7th Berlin Biennale have proposed to the Culture Commissions from Madrid and Barcelona to participate in one of the most important art exhibitions in Europe. In that year, Artur Żmijewski was collaborating with one of the most important networks of art, politics, and thought in Eastern Europe: the Polish organization Krytyka Politiczna (in English, Political Criticism). One of his collaborators, Igor Stokfiszewski, who had followed the Puerta del Sol encampment in Madrid on site, contacted members of the international working groups that had been established in the squares of Madrid and Barcelona. There were other international working commissions in Valencia, Santander, and Seville, however, the bond that the two major cities of the Spanish state had with each other and with the rest of the world favored such a contact.

Similar to the transversality that emerged in Spain in the 1970s, through the aforementioned Hidra Democrática, the organization in the squares cut across each participant according to their motivations. In my case, I was part of the international working group in Barcelona from the beginning, and from time to time I escaped to the assemblies of the Culture Commission. At a personal level, those cultural assemblies left an indelible mark on me. On the one hand, I came from a very comforting process of self-esteem with the publication a few months earlier of my first novel. Imagine, the creator and his work were on the street, my thoughts were looking for ideas to devour for my next projects and my work served as a calling card. However, the interaction in the cultural assemblies showed me that a great work is not a great work until it is shaped by the people. Perhaps this was one of the questions Artur Żmijewski was asking himself when he decided to open the Biennale to the awakening of the street. My awakening was immediate: seeing a 12-year-old girl talking about art with more coherence than an old local poet made me understand the reasons why, in some way, art also had to be rescued from its own bubble. And from this rich and extensive interaction between people and artists, some minimum demands were created to recover culture.

The model of culture agreed upon in the Plaça de Catalunya for two months became a document of principles and proposals that were debated. However, it was always made very clear that it would be a permanently open and ongoing document. The failures in the cultural world that were detected in those assemblies can be summarized in the eight points of the declaration:

• Cultural policy is not culture.
• Public institutions do not make culture.
• Public institutions manage public resources for culture.
• Culture is a common good and a constantly transforming process that reflects social dynamics, the result of which does not have to be necessarily a work or a commercial product.
• Culture must be free and plural, and cultural policies must reflect, promote, and guarantee this freedom and this plurality.
• Cultural policy must provide resources for research, production, exhibition, dissemination, and cultural education, from a sustainable perspective and based on its social value.
• Cultural policy cannot be oriented towards a mere pursuit of economic benefits.
• Long-term, inclusive, participatory, sustainable, and exploratory cultural models must be developed.

Based on these axes, proposals were developed around a social redefinition of cultural policies, a new model for managing public resources, a free culture model, transparent cultural policies, providing the necessary resources for education for cultural awareness, and, as a communicative vessel, a political redefinition of public space is proposed (and in this section, although of a local nature, some answers are given to the question that heads this presentation, and in a certain way, it responds subjectively to the big question posed by the curators of the Berlin Biennale).

The end of municipal policies of privatization of public space is requested. To put a stop to the favorization by the public administration of those manifestations in the public space linked exclusively to private and commercial initiatives. The repeal of the Barcelona Municipal Civic Ordinance is requested and the rewriting of the cultural uses of the public space with the aim of promoting plural and inclusive cultural practices, particularly those not supervised by the administrations. Emphasis is placed on the need to modify the legislation on the design of public spaces and urban furniture to favor the social recovery of the uses of public space. Finally, the modification of the management and the model of ownership of the public radio-electric space is requested. Opening of channels of free production and access, both on television and on the radio.

The international working groups of the squares in Madrid and Barcelona communicated to their networks the possibility of participating in the Seventh Berlin Biennale. Among the requirements for participation, it was made clear that projects were prioritized according to social criteria. This meant that self-management had to be taken into account, as well as the flexibility of the shared space.The first reaction of the collectives and associations invited to this Biennale was a bit lukewarm. It didn’t get a great reception, but they didn’t oppose the participation of the squares either. Among the most common reservations was the idea of participating in a public institution of the German government. This is understandable if you’ve been spending months educating yourself about how the financial dictatorship in the European Union works. The resistance in the squares was still fresh in people’s minds, and in a way, the invitation could be seen as a naive gesture.

I can’t speak for everyone who decided to accept the invitation, but if there’s one thing that describes my confirmation of attendance at the Biennale, it was the possibility I saw to change something from within. As the saying goes, to «put the finger on the sore spot.» On this occasion, through another axis that is also touched by the system, such as art. In more precise words: I was interested in knowing what direction art was taking through the public institution, and how those months of uprising in the squares of the Spanish state could be translated or put into practice in such a different environment, but at the same time enriched, by the local and international resistance groups that would be part of the Seventh edition of the Biennale.

The never-ending centre-periphery divide

The use of the Kunstwerke as the venue for the biennale was a political gesture in itself. The building, built in 1926, was the headquarters of the Ministry of Labour during the Third Reich. In the 1960s, it became the home of the defense of the memory of the German territories (both East and West). Inside the former Deutschlandhaus, the decoration of the building itself was included as part of the biennale’s discourse. Although the archive remained closed, visitors to the Biennale could appreciate the stained glass windows with the coats of arms of the different German regions by Ludwig Peter Kowalsi, as well as a sculpture in commemoration of the exiles of the Third Reich by Hermann Joachim Pagels. In the center was a courtyard, and at the back was the main building of the Biennale, which was divided into 3 floors and a huge basement of an area equivalent to the rest of the floors, but with the addition of a small garden in the back.

The initial idea of the curators of the Berlin Biennale was for visitors to find the basement taken over by the activities that spontaneously took place in the squares the previous year. As Żmijewski said: «An area that we will not curate, supervise or evaluate.» And in the formation of this self-managed space, we were involved for half the biennale.

The remaining group of activists from occupy Berlin were organizing the space provided by the Biennale through local assemblies. These assemblies had been established as a rigid entity where decisions were made, in this case, to the space for the emerging movements of 2011. There was a series of contacts from occupy Berlin to the outside world, basically informing of the decisions being made. Among those decisions, it was agreed to distribute the modest budget and the design of what many journalists would later call the human zoo.

Let me stop here for a moment because it was a major issue in the first half of the Biennale. In other words, for those of us who came from the Spanish state, the idea that an assembly was an end in itself seemed somewhat misleading. It is important to clarify that for us, it represented one more tool, important because it was where the proposals of the working groups converged and were improved, but in no case could it become a royal decree. If the declarations of minimum demands of the occupied squares always closed with «an open and ongoing document,» it is clear that on the one hand they defined the open nature of the movement, and on the other hand they established what I mentioned earlier, «a great work is not great until it is shaped by the people.»So I asked myself, what could have led the movements that emerged after occupy Wall Street to understand that the assembly is an end? Perhaps the overly superficial mediatization of a protest that was swallowed up by the mass media in a savage way, or perhaps it was that, trying to take the best that inspires an organization, there would be a thread of hope, unfortunately filtered through the lenses of those who opposed it.And if that hope was that an assembly where one voice permeated the rest constituted a possibility of giving a voice to the voiceless?I repeat, as a means, it works adequately, as an end, I consider that it falls somewhat short because, as I have written, assemblies are nothing more than one more tool, neither more nor less.

When I arrived in Berlin, I found an open space for visitors that had been divided into temporary structures for assemblies, screenings, and art installations. In adjacent rooms, a kitchen, a dormitory for activists, and a small space for radio broadcasts were being completed. These last rooms were closed to Biennale visitors. There was no internet, and the budget was practically allocated.

With this picture, you can imagine why half of the time of the Biennale was spent redesigning an alternative plan. Others simply thought of hacking it, and some others gave up any attempt to reformulate the decisions that had been made in the assemblies of Occupy Berlin. For a month, we worked on reconfiguring the work pre-designed by local activists. Incidentally, there were not many of them, and the local call had been received with indifference by the vast majority of Berlin collectives because of the supposed institutional contamination. During these four weeks, we analyzed the possibilities of a new relationship between activists, collectives, and the state institution. We organized different meetings and internal assemblies with a clear transformative will. We chose or raised topics, problems, and ways of doing things that connected with the perspective of responding with criteria and legitimacy, but without falling into a pure experimentation, already known, that only sought to improve communication, empathy, or synergies between the triangle institution, activists, and society.

And at this point, we managed to gather the local activists in an assembly that served as a turning point for the rest of the Biennale. The topic of the day was a single, clear question: Why are we here? The debate dragged on for hours, days. For some, the importance of being present at the Biennale strengthened the idea of surviving as an organization. It was a matter of reaching broad sections of the population to change things. For others, social transformation was only possible from outside institutions. Being inside implied reinforcing those institutions, legitimizing their way of doing things, a way of doing things that, according to them, was losing its capacity for real transformation. In any case, it is clear that outside of institutions, internal contradictions decrease, but it is also true that the capacity for impact and dissemination of ideas and messages can be significantly reduced. The question was also whether it was possible to work at the intersection of these different alternatives, pressuring and straining the institution to influence it and achieve that it substantially modified its way of operating. After hours of intense debate, the local activists decided to rethink the moment and meet again in a second assembly. A week later, the number of attendees at the new assembly fell to less than half, and that process buried the local group in its own contradictions.

Disobedience is the way

In the face of this state of ungovernability, a series of acts of disobedience began. These acts were not aimed at reorganizing the internal order, but rather at questioning the role of the public art institution vis-à-vis activists and society. The goal was to push the institution to its limits to see where its commitment truly lay.

The first target was the curators of the Biennale. To this end, several works on display with the names and surnames of the curators were intervened. A red and black flag was hung at the entrance of the building, a Belarusian artist’s installation was overwritten with more radical messages pointing to the beginning of a battle against the curators. However, the most significant act of disobedience, due to its scale and subsequent impact, was the enormous graffiti that two members of the Barcelona encampment made on one of the most visible works to visitors: «Rise Up» in deep red on a white background, hanging from the windows of the Biennale’s management offices. That day, the director, secretary, treasurer, and most of the workers who passed by the offices found themselves face to face with an enormous graffiti covering their windows with just six letters: RISE UP.

As we can see, the process of change in the public art institution had begun with disobedience. First, questioning the local group, then the curators, and now the management of the Kunstwerke: the representative arm of the German state at the seventh Berlin Biennale.

That morning, a nervous Artur Żmijewski asked me to mediate with the members of the Barcelona graphics commission who had made the graffiti. We sat down in the courtyard of the Kunstwerke and began to talk. Żmijewski was worried because the management of the institution had expressed great concern about that act of disobedience, but Żmijewski did not want his first question to be that, instead he asked the graffiti artists if they considered it fair to have intervened in the work of another author. The graffiti artists responded by saying that that intervention was their work, they asked Żmijewski if he could understand the meaning of their work. Then Żmijewski replied that it was likely that the repainting would not be covered by the insurance policy contracted by the Biennale, and that in this case he would have to put public institution budget to repaint it. In a masterful move by the graffiti artists, they said that they could go from the fine brush to the fat brush, they could take charge of repainting the walls splashed with graffiti in exchange for a budget lower than that charged by the insurer. If this last proposal does not synthesize the power relationship in the contemporary art world today, I would not be going into the details of this conversation.

Beyond the agreement reached that morning between the curator and the graffiti artists (which never came to fruition), it was clear that an example of transformation of the public art institution had been established, in this case, through the figure of its curator, who from that moment on found one more reason to side with change. A first necessary step to answer his initial question of whether art can change politics.

Horizontality in Process

Occupy Museums arrived at the Berlin Biennale a few days after these incidents. They came with a large group compared to the other delegations that were at the Biennale. They had been working on public art institutions in New York. This background had been considered of interest by curator Joanna Warsza, Żmijewski’s deputy. They had their homework done from home. Their main goal was to build a transnational action network in the field of art, although they found it somewhat strange to coexist in the middle of an exhibition. Their plan was composed of 3 basic points: first, they wanted to explore the power relations between the curators and the public institution. Secondly, and very much in line with the occupy movements, they conspired to ignore the exhibition, organizing actions against specific targets in Berlin (banks and museums mainly). And finally, they were motivated to create a kind of Trojan horse that would infect the collective of the art world, with the spirit of implementing a style of direct democracy. As they themselves defined it, «to change the purpose of the Biennale, that is, what we have understood as a propagator of neoliberal political normality into a useful place for our movement.»

After some preliminary actions that served as workshops to merge the ideas of Occupy Museums together with the activists from Spain, Germany, and Russia who were already there, a collective statement called «You can’t curate a movement» was drafted. The text urged the curators to cede their position to the assembly, that is, that from now on «all decisions will be made by the assembly, which includes and encompasses former curators, directors, workers, and the entire Kunstwerke community.» The document also proposed that «all decisions relating to funding from the German government must be fully transparent,» and when all was mentioned, this included from the beginning of the Biennale to the end. «Therefore, it was proposed to bring the Biennale to the logic of a movement,» instead of simply being composed of a specific area for activism, another for invited artists, and another for the institution.

Generally, a proposal of this type is usually met with silence, or it is channeled through a bureaucratic process to slow down a response to the point of nonexistence. The fact that the curators agreed to continue the process of horizontalization of the Biennale, instead of protecting the institution, gave continuity to a path that began through disobedience and, on the other hand, opened the possibility of building an experiment that could go down in history.

Once accepted, the proposal was brought to a general assembly formed by everyone who lived in the Kunstwerke: from the director to the cleaning workers, through all the staff members, the guards, some artists, the curators, and the activists. That practice of direct democracy with people who were exercising it for the first time was a historical event. The biggest difference I noticed between the previous assemblies with occupy Berlin and this one was that a hierarchy was being broken down. The speaking turns were short and at times condescending to the power organs of the institution. The greater experience of the activists in these types of meetings tried to break down the verticality with which the workers of the Kunstwerke understood that exercise of democracy. With a relatively low number of interventions, the bulk of the assembly agreed to accept the proposal for horizontalization of the Biennale, some workers looked at the director out of the corner of their eye as they timidly raised their hand.

The next step was to form different working groups between Kunstwerke workers, artists, and activists. These working groups opened up the functioning of the public institution to participation. Some groups worked better than others, in particular, the groups with administrative tasks were more opaque than those where the shared activity represented a relief in the workload. However, some achievements were made from this experience, for example, moving from indignation to action and from protest to proposal. As a result of this new step, we drafted a guide called «How to Build Horizontality.» A document fed by the different experiences in the social movements that emerged in 2011 and that lists in a simple way how to work in a team without dying trying.These first dynamics of collectivization were followed by other general assemblies. At this point, the assembly began to make more sense insofar as the results of this transformation flowed into this space. However, the Kunstwerke staff claimed lack of time to be able to attend both the assemblies and certain working groups. The meeting times were tried to be adjusted as best as possible to the activities that each person had to develop at the Biennale.

If I remember correctly, it was the third general assembly of that experiment when one of the interventions of a gallery worker gave a twist to the process of horizontalization of the German public institution, the gallery worker commented that her salary, around €6.50 per hour, did not return any benefit to her work due to the rigidity of the schedule, transportation prices, etc. With her voice, other eyes rose. Most of them around the treasurer and the director. After an intense session where the activists tried to mediate between the emerging problems and possible solutions, the Kunstwerke management agreed to incorporate a 30% increase in the salary of the gallery workers for the next Biennale. This translated to earning €8.50 per hour instead of the €6.50 that was being paid.

Conclusion

That subtle change in power within the Biennale was simply produced through this act of gathering and proposing new forms of participation between curators, artists, activists, and the museum workers. A small victory that signaled the fact that the Biennale had become a politicized event. Seen from the point of view of activism, we had recovered a little dignity through a small step together with the institution’s staff. However, the event was coming to an end. And one of our biggest concerns was the continuity that was going to be given to the entire experiment. We sensed that the experience of having formed working groups could have an impact on a hopeful future. The path was open. The documents prepared on horizontality served to give continuity to the process, although it was time for everyone to return home and the workers of the Kunstwerke would be left alone.

Already from Barcelona, I learned that part of the Kunstwerke staff retired after the horizontalization experiment. As curator Zmijewski described it: «The political reality is brutal, after this experience, the Kunstwerke returned to its old form quite quickly. However, some of the permanent employees of the Kunstwerke decided to quit their jobs. After the experience they had during the Biennale, they were unable to continue working in the same conditions.»

Within the logic of the temporality that the Berlin Biennale allowed, it can be said that the process of horizontalization was a successful experiment. Born of disobedience, as any claim that falls within the vertex of resistance, a small gesture began to question the role of the public institution in the art world. In addition, the graffiti carried a very visionary message: RISE UP.

If we add to this component the commitment of a group of activists with dissident proposals, such as the Occupy Museums initiative with activists from Spain, Germany, and Russia, it can be said that this second stage represented the perfect continuation of disobedience. In a nutshell, we went from protest to proposal. It was shown that a little support from the institution was necessary to go from an alternative idea to putting it into practice in an incidental way, that is, to impact power structures. In the first place, we achieved this through group work dynamics and the increase in salary for gallery workers. Subsequently, the layoff of some permanent workers of the Biennale reinforced our questioning of the modus operandi of public art institutions. We would have liked this experiment to mark the beginning of a process of empowerment where the public institution and the public work hand in hand to achieve common goals. Will it be a matter of time? Institutional will? Both, probably.

Since this process was not conceived within the codes of the art world, where work crystallizes in exhibitions with aesthetic or conceptual frameworks, the democratizing experience showed us that political processes within art institutions are theoretically impossible. However, direct democracy and interior occupation do not depend on the great visibility that one of the most important art exhibitions in Europe, as the Berlin Biennale is said to be, can provide. Perhaps the success of that experiment also occurred behind the back of the visibility that the art world currently provides. What if this were the zoo they were talking about?

Héctor Huerga

Barcelona, February 2016.

Photo: Ania Do

Kunstwerke, Berlin Biennale, 2012.

What matters is not to produce, but to understand.

And understanding means your ability to perceive

the sum of unreality that enters into each phenomenon.

Cioran

In February 2022, I was looking for a place to revise my latest novel. It was already written, it was just a matter of reading it over again one more time before it would be set in stone forever. In my search, I consulted several sources for a place where I could carry out that task. A place where I would not only find a conducive environment to work, but where I could also become involved in some way with a community. If possible, a group of people who shared a set of ideals that were compatible with my way of thinking. It wasn’t so complicated, a community that was sensitive to artistic processes and critical of social conformism.

On the last day of February, I arrived as a resident in Bravos, a small municipality in northern Galicia, where A Ferrería is located. As its name well indicates, it is an old blacksmith shop founded in the 15th century whose historical development makes it interesting in five fundamental points: it was a strategic blacksmith shop for the Spanish monarchy of that time, it was involved in several timber conflicts with neighboring populations, the troops of Napoleon razed it after their passage, the De Cora family was loyal to the power while they ran the place, and since 2018 a new current of critical thinking seems to have settled in the place, erasing a dramatic chronology, one more in rural Galicia.

It is important to keep in mind throughout this text that, after a while, things are not usually as they happened, but as they are remembered. I remember very well that my first step was to consult several friends about a place with the characteristics of A Ferrería. The next thing was to write requesting more information. After making the decision to go, I told myself that since A Ferrería is an artistic residency, perhaps it would benefit from a donation of books. I sent four boxes of books that arrived a few days before me. There they were, at the entrance, they still retained that smell of farewell in Barcelona. My arrival took place at night, I had enough time to meet some people who were part of the project. I chose a room. I changed a metal chair for a more comfortable one and went to sleep.

My first decision was to dedicate more time to my personal work than to the community. And so it was that I placed my work table by the window and dedicated myself to rereading old compositions. Cutting here, adding more text there, refining this dialogue better, giving intensity to this encounter…And as in any writing process, reading also demanded my time. On occasion, I would go down to read by the mill, behind the chapel, in the agroforestry area with its beautiful views, next to a hórreo, on the esplanade to the left (one day I imagined this place with a jetty with a beach next to the river). A Ferrería has several points of escape that are essential if what you are looking for is total isolation. You just have to walk a couple of minutes and the tranquility embraces you.

A week after my arrival, I attended the first assembly of A Ferrería. I longed to be able to participate in an assembly, on this occasion I brought a series of points to share on topics that could be developed in a community space. I was excited to see how a community was articulated around the moment of vertebrating itself, or of rendering accounts, or simply of showing affection. I learned that an hour earlier a volunteer assembly had taken place, that is, people who had decided to contribute to the A Ferrería project in exchange for a place to sleep. I was curious to understand this type of barter and I left it on my wish list to be able to participate later in one of those moments. Gathered around the kitchen counter, my first assembly began. There were two things that surprised me that first time: that it was called social, social assembly is a pleonasm of the street, and that they invited me to start the assembly, oh wait, I just arrived. Not knowing very well where to start, I thanked everyone for making me feel so good in that my first week in the house, then I drew my dagger and began to share a series of thematic axes by which the actions of A Ferrería could begin to be articulated: environment, art, decolonization, technology, micro politics and feminism. When I raised my head from my list, I realized that I had done it again. The looks were lost looking for how to land the concepts I described in my list. It was not time to start with everything. Before, it was necessary to finish a series of infrastructures in the house itself that would allow us to continue building a dream space. And between the construction and the maintenance of the spaces, the time of the volunteers was going. Maybe later, I thought. And so it was that these thematic axes were going to be timidly mentioned for the rest of my stay, some of them such as the environment or feminism were already scheduled in actions such as planting an edible forest or monthly meetings on feminisms. My persuasion to take it to the max did not take into account the tender reality: A Ferrería required a series of everyday actions just to keep the place afloat. The rest of the assembly consisted of each member of the house telling how they felt, how to resolve certain expenses, or proposing certain activities in common with the aim of ensuring that work was not the only meeting point. To tell the truth, A Ferrería had a larger volume of work and maintenance than the availability of volunteers. In the face of this, I decided to lend a hand to the volunteer work in the way that I could combine volunteering with residency. That is, a few hours for A Ferrería, a few hours for my personal project. And I started doing it from the day after the assembly.

My hands, accustomed to floating over the keys of a computer, drew the attention of the locals for their softness. It was only a matter of weeks before they stopped being surprised. Cutting wood, lifting stones, transporting planks, whitewashing walls… Every night I felt the relief of going to bed, there were no more intellectual storms in my head about how to continue a scene or where to tighten my novel. Physical work took care of balancing intellectual work, and in the midst of it all, it allowed me to get to know my roommates in depth. As García Márquez once said, each person has a public life, a private life, and a secret life. And in those encounters with volunteer work, our conversations wandered between these three lives.

It is worth noting that in a society so fragmented, where everyone is becoming more and more of a specialist in something, it is appreciated to land on the intellectual shores of each person, without any competitive spirit, with the sole purpose of returning to places that we no longer remember leaving one day. These are details that are appreciated in community life. And in A Ferrería, as the weeks went by, the conversations had a marked personal character. Then there were the endless Scrabble-like debates: We’re thinking about getting a rooster to accompany the chickens, the chickens should go out of the henhouse from time to time, from time to time I have strange dreams, strange dreams could be associated with the history of the place, the history of the place would not be understood without the blacksmith shop, the blacksmith shop was abandoned in the 1970s, the 1970s in Galicia represented a boom in emigration… and so on until everyone was satisfied… or so it seemed.

One of the values to keep in mind when you come to A Ferrería is the surrounding community. Just as I came one day to do a residency, before, there have been other people who came to make a life. Most of these people are couples who seek to detach themselves from the monotonous circles that the city offers them. Around A Ferrería, alternative projects of education, environmentalism, bioconstruction and art are being cooked up. Although the most common activity is construction, for obvious reasons, it also happens that most of these projects are in their embryonic phase. A large part of the people who make them up work to emancipate themselves economically from their places of origin. It is still early for that, but it is the right time to take a walk, meet them and be part of a rural community that is getting closer to being self-sufficient every day. The vast majority of this surrounding community continues to frequent A Ferrería, for them, it is a kind of catalyst for possibilities.

In my experience with these surrounding communities, I can add that something differentiating has happened to me between residing in A Ferrería and living with the people who make up this community, and those are the affections.

Why do I mention affections? The most perceptive people will know what I mean. It is not the same to know that you come and go from a place doing your volunteer work in exchange for a room, to design your life counting on the realization of your ideas, until you see them finished, putting your heart and soul into carrying them out. In this sense, for me it was not enough to dedicate my time and effort to reviewing my novel, I needed to feel that all that natural wonder that surrounded us, and that made us feel privileged, could somehow facilitate introspection in other types of relationships, probably open another type of communication more honest, without filters or pretensions. This movement is in contrast to many other people who once passed through A Ferrería and considered that if they only came for a while, perhaps the important thing was what they would return to their place of origin. On the contrary, I came to the conclusion that if I stayed beyond my personal project, the important thing would be what I gave to others. In other words, it is not the place, nor your personal project that makes an experience special, it is the people, our daily life, our love for what we do, for how we feel, the way we make ourselves loved … And in all this field of possibilities there is no distinction if you are basically that person who can combine love and effort in abundance, being honest, I don’t think it’s a majority, or that other person, like me, who needs a small stone throw, or to fall out of bed one night, to realize it.

I felt that small stone throw one day while I was reviewing the Instagram posts of A Ferrería. In the second post on the account, I read the word heterotopia, a concept coined by Foucault in one of his lectures that could be simplified as «a place where everything happens but nothing remains.» Voilà. This small connection between Foucault’s words and certain unfinished projects at A Ferrería led me to think that perhaps there was a small short circuit between volunteer work and unfinished works.

Perhaps it wasn’t just at A Ferrería where this short circuit could be glimpsed. In other emerging communities where volunteer work takes place, there is a thin line between what a person offers to the place and what that place gives to that person. In general, the exchange is simply a place to sleep, but other alternatives to the recognition of altruistic work could also be studied, less material, closer to the knowledge of each person. Why not a new organization of volunteer work where people work by project fit? Works that contribute to the growth not only of the place but also of the volunteer, at both curricular and emotional levels.

Sometimes I get the impression that all those people who every day contribute from the shadows with their time and effort to crystallize community projects, continue to be the great forgotten of each generation, and in this sense we have to thank art for bringing them to light. Thanks to Buñuel, Remedios Zafra, Jim Jarmush, Andrea Abreu, J.K. Toole, Yolanda Domínguez… to name a few examples.

On a fine Saturday in March, the first feminist meeting I would have the opportunity to attend was scheduled. A few hours earlier, the A Ferrería hall was filled for a yoga class. In that session, women, men, children, and some other animals wagging their tails participated. Suddenly, the surrounding communities had taken a liking to A Ferrería. After class came a succulent meal, and for dessert, the feminist meeting.

This type of meetings, where each person arrives from their own wounds, or from new learnings, are usually very interesting to get a sketch of who and how. In my opinion, the meeting started with what could be the final question, let’s see, what is feminism as a starting question would open up a myriad of opinions that would be difficult to align in common proposals. And so it was. The men once again occupied two thirds of the conversation and it was impossible to move forward.

My final proposal was to organize a meeting of masculinities among men. To study and debate some basic concepts of our privileges. To know the origin of our male behavior and, if we could, put into practice new masculinities. That proposal translated into a kind of effervescent well-being among women, who pushed their partners to participate, while the men asked me over and over again what topics we were going to talk about. As the date of the meeting of masculinities approached, the uncertainty became more evident, then the men started to experience an effervescent well-being while the women asked me what topics we were going to talk about.

Beyond the content of the meeting on masculinities, what was really emphasized was the community’s acceptance of suggesting and embarking on new learnings. The most valuable thing, I would say. To go to a rural area of Galicia and have free rein to share concerns, and for them to be accepted by the community, speaks very clearly to the transformative potential that these types of places offer. It is true that in other places, these initiatives would have to go through a regulatory council, the wonderful thing about A Ferrería is that it is still a beautiful territory to cultivate.

We left the meeting on masculinities with a clearer idea of the origin of our male behavior, we talked about the influence of our fathers on our way of being, of certain micro-machisms and the macho concept of always being right, we didn’t have time for more. Each one did it from their own trenches, with sincerity. We put our hearts into our words, the rest was a matter of putting it into practice each one in their day-to-day life. It was still premature to predict changes. The first step had been taken.

Easter bloomed in Bravos as a prelude to spring. The legendary camellias in front of my window had stopped blooming. The chickens were basking in the sun. And the feast of San Isidro was approaching. The chapel next to the river would attract neighbors on May 15. Weeks before, A Ferrería was organizing to celebrate a community party. On the one hand, the first mass organization rehearsal, on the other hand, the biggest event on micro-politics that I would experience in Galicia.

In the meantime, the course of my novel continued on the deadlines I had set for myself. Being aware of the flow of arrivals to the house allowed me to plan the volunteer work with the editing of my novel. I am one of those who require total isolation when I write, therefore, I was looking for a way for each activity to have its own time.

One of the other remarkable aspects of the arrival flows was that each group molded the place to its expectations. In other words, A Ferrería is a chameleonic space. The only things that are fixed are the meeting times, and even those sometimes change. The assignments for cleaning and maintenance change, the methods change, the activities change, and I’ve even seen responsibilities change. The organization of the San Isidro festival was a good test for detecting these changes. For example, the person in charge of building a forge was also in charge of entertaining children with non-competitive games, the person in charge of whitewashing walls was the coordinator of the music groups, a degrowther and a social worker kept the accounts, the president of a cultural association was at the grill, the person in charge of the vegetable garden was at the bar serving drinks, and so on.

In the face of such multitasking, I felt obligated to take the microphone and speak to the public. I presented the place and the effort of the people who had been involved in the organization, as well as setting the foundations of an inclusive and respectful place. I think I did that well, but my idea of making a roulette wheel could have been better. It was made, yes, but the profits only covered the costs of its manufacture. I don’t think it was a bad idea, it’s just that people aren’t used to it, or at least that’s how I console myself.

The festival program turned out to be quite attractive. With the chapel open and illuminated, we started with a few hours of gaiteiros music, followed by circus performances, basically a raffle, the roulette wheel, and some juggling, to give way to contemporary music groups. The closing of the festival was spectacular with an improvised concert inside the chapel. Those who wanted to had a great time, I was one of them. The vast majority of the audience were people we knew, although I was surprised to talk to neighbors that I would have never met otherwise. Good work of micro politics.

After the storm comes the puddles. Nobody expected the San Isidro festival to be so successful, nor did anyone expect less people to come than expected. Drinks and food were bought as if Napoleon’s troops had planned to come to apologize for what they did to A Ferrería in the 19th century.

In any case, the reading after the San Isidro festival shed light on the fact that the people from the surrounding area who came enjoyed it. Whoever wanted to go to the chapel went, whoever wanted to dance did, whoever wanted to listen to gaiteiros, also. At that point, it could be said that the promotion for the following year was already done.

However, in the evaluation meetings, points more related to how we would like things to be organized were questioned, rather than who really deserved credit for something that we had never done together. I don’t know if it was the time to personalize responsibilities, but I suspect that, starting with my public presentation of what A Ferrería was, someone must have thought that I had to repeat the talk a few times.

And so it was that from then on, I not only had my novel ready to be revised, but also, every morning, I fed the chickens, cats, and dogs. I reviewed the entries and exits of people in a shared Excel sheet. I kept the box of expenses and income. I carried the watering cans with rainwater to the vegetable garden. And when I discovered how to use the brush cutter… I killed two snakes.

And all this without counting the days of rain without a roof, when I had to dry and insulate the wooden floors while waiting for the workers to put on the new slate or at least insulate the roof.

If Kafka represented his metamorphosis through a cockroach that could not put its legs on the ground, my metamorphosis could be summarized as that same cockroach without being able to put its back on the ground. It was as if I had turned the hourglass over. Everything that I never thought I would do, I was already doing. And besides, I had finished revising my novel.

In A Ferrería, the weeks went by and far from feeling pressure from my new duties, I sensed that I was in the right place and at the right time to be happy with each new task that I committed to carrying out. I slipped all responsibility for the accounts, administration does not mean exercising the power of decision-making. I described the place through my own appreciations, a new sign of freedom. I received the love of the animals, plants, and people with whom I cohabited at that time, taking a step forward with the heart is rarely contradictory. In short, I arrived as just another resident, with the firm purpose of finishing my novel, and I ended up embracing the phrase by Cioran that gives title to this text: The horror of contemplating a writer where once you could see a horse.

It could be said without fear of being wrong that for a short period of time I was administering A Ferrería. This new situation did not give me the authority to make any decisions about others, on the contrary, it allowed me to believe that in the respect for the rights of others lies peace, as Kant said at one time.

For a long time, I had been jotting down in my notebook of fluctuating ideas how I would imagine A Ferrería. What works would barely need to be touched, I would retouch the volunteering with the nuances I mentioned before, while the residencies would no longer be in the central building. My A Ferrería, from an architectural point of view, would have a series of cabins around the central building. In these cabins, artists whose disciplines allowed it could sleep and work. In short, the central building would house the workshops and the composition and exhibition spaces for those other disciplines that require it. In addition to the kitchen, the fireplace, and the dining room. In the new workshop, as it is projected, there would be a library and a silent room on the upper floor, while on the lower floor a small auditorium to see audiovisual projects as well as small theatrical performances. The vegetable garden would also be surrounded by its own cabins, new greenhouses, and a germination laboratory. While the second workshop could be dedicated to bioconstruction, also surrounded by cabins, with shelves where all those tools that seem to have a life of their own can be identified at first glance.

Once the mold is made, we go with the dough. Fortunately, in recent years we have been witnessing the flowering of community projects that wander between the environment, bioconstruction, and art. Fundamental ingredients to understand where we are going. In this sense, there are several examples of abandoned villages or surrounding communities that, beyond congratulating themselves for being neighbors, seek to integrate magnificent values ​​into coexistence. And it is precisely at this point where A Ferrería has the wonderful opportunity to not only be a catalyst space but also a space for artistic, environmental, and community thought and development. To achieve this, it is possible that we will have to have great doses of patience at the beginning, but impossible, what is said impossible is flying with your hands. Try it and you will see. Every organization relies on a plan to support it. In this planning, I would develop a roadmap with 3 projects to be carried out throughout the first year, one artistic, one environmental, and one on bioconstruction. The second year would include one more project, probably on the axis that worked best the first year. While in the third or fourth year I would propose to have about 6 projects running at A Ferrería. One project every 2 months. How would it be possible to build this elephant with multiple heads? Perhaps by changing the concept of coming to A Ferrería because it is an idyllic place to leaving A Ferrería after participating in an inspiring project.

I am writing these musings after having spoken them. I am not throwing a stone into the ocean. I am only thinking about how a group of people as wonderful as those I have met these months in A Ferrería can feel happy to belong to the surrounding community. They give all the meaning to this place. And for them, and for those who are yet to come, it is worth planning and putting into action possible futures. As Faulkner said: “You can’t swim towards new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the coast”.

I would like to express my gratitude to all the people who have made my experience at A Ferrería possible. With special mention to Dennis for creating a space so full of possibilities.

Héctor Huerga

August, 2022