It was never about arriving somewhere, but at some point I was almost at my destination. It is one of the strangest moments in a long walk, having crossed mountains and plains, having met dozens of people, having slept in the most comfortable and uncomfortable places and then one morning there are only 36 kilometers left, 25, 13, 7, 3, 5, 3 (how on earth did I take a wrong turn in the last couple of kilometres) and there it is, already in sight, although the road there hasn’t ended yet. I took a break with 500 metres left, to postpone something ending. I longed for a room of my own, a proper bed, a table to spread out the collection of treasures that had no value for anybody but me, but I would miss stretching out my arms in the morning and feel leaves and grass, waking up in a place I had no knowledge of until I arrived there in the evening.
Ten days later I would be asked by Victoriia, one of the Ukrainian artists staying at the Foundry, to reenact my arrival so she could take photos of me. I had forgotten some things she remembered, because she was there when I arrived, she saw me cross the bridge while the evening was falling, wondering where to enter the building, detaching the walking cart from my body, opening the door.
In a way it didn’t feel different from arriving at any of the other locations where I arrived after a day of walking, my feet hurt a bit more because I walked more than I usually would in the last 2 days and I guess I accomplished something by getting to a place after roughly 1400 kilometres of which approximately 700 were on foot. Still the distance is a side issue, it isn’t about achieving a walk, a slow journey, it is only a way to be. To be at, to be in, to be close to, to be under, to just be. Now I was here. There would be a different kind of journey tomorrow and the day after.
On my first full day I explored but throughout the week I would keep discovering new corners, buildings, paths, I would meet new people, hear new stories. The site was an ironworks in the 15th century, the castle that came afterwards didn’t survive Napoleon’s armies and the stones from the ruin were used to build a manor house. In the 1970s it was deserted and stayed like that for decades until new life was blown into it in 2018 and it became a non-profit space for creators of any kind “who seek outside of the institutional confines of market and university”: The Foundry, a site that “stresses that critical thinking is a way of living rooted in engagements with one another and with the environment”. Everybody is welcome and all are using and taking care of the shared space in a non-hierarchical way. Although the site was still privately owned, the goal was to create a legal model against real estate speculation and hand over 50% of the ownership to the to be founded Sindicato de la Tierra, which would make it impossible to sell it and safeguard its function of a free space, a model that could be used for other properties as well and would help collectives with similar goals as the Foundry to acquire a place to live and work..
In the week after my arrival we learned about different ways of commoning in Galicia (the commons are the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, commoning is a way to describe the commons as an actionable idea, not just a place. With commoning, rather than having everything decided for by markets or governments, it is possible to take matters in one’s own hands according to shared visions). The Sindicato de la Tierra and the Foundry itself are initiatives that attempt to construct a new type of commons to limit the hold of capitalism over our lives. Noortje Keurhof came to talk about the Brigadas Deseucaliptizadoras; a lot of Galicia’s common lands are covered in monoculture tree plantations, the eucalyptus trees are invasive, deplete the soil and form a risk in case of forest fires. The Brigadas work together with the local communities, removing the trees from common land.
Sabrina Rosina took us on a walk to reimagine and redefine territorial boundaries through the lens of botanical wisdom and gain insights into the symbiotic relationship between nature and human systems. Kilian Jörg talked about the car as a main driver and embodiment of the Homogenocene—the ecological era that is about the homogenization of biodiversity as a result of people—and discussed possibilities of undoing its auto-destructive homogenisation of landscapes, desires and economies. There was a debate about rural gentrification, two lawyers from Despacho came to explain the Sindicato de la Tierra, there was a communal work day and presentations by the Ukranian artists staying at the Foundry. On the last day, Dennis Schep presented his upcoming book “Bloom; Iron and the Theft of Space and Time”, written inspired by the Foundry’s history, Peyton Chipman and Siddiq Chan gave a workshop about fermenting and local products, Davoud Gerami showed us his movie “Age of Iron” and I gave a presentation about my walk. It was mainly improvised since I had prioritised spending time with everybody involved in the programme and the Foundry over sinking into all the material I collected and wrote during the walk. I used apples from the trees in the field outside to map my route, so that afterwards they could be transformed into community cider.
Ten days later I would be asked by Victoriia, one of the Ukrainian artists staying at the Foundry, to reenact my arrival so she could take photos of me. I had forgotten some things she remembered, because she was there when I arrived, she saw me cross the bridge while the evening was falling, wondering where to enter the building, detaching the walking cart from my body, opening the door.
In a way it didn’t feel different from arriving at any of the other locations where I arrived after a day of walking, my feet hurt a bit more because I walked more than I usually would in the last 2 days and I guess I accomplished something by getting to a place after roughly 1400 kilometres of which approximately 700 were on foot. Still the distance is a side issue, it isn’t about achieving a walk, a slow journey, it is only a way to be. To be at, to be in, to be close to, to be under, to just be. Now I was here. There would be a different kind of journey tomorrow and the day after.
On my first full day I explored but throughout the week I would keep discovering new corners, buildings, paths, I would meet new people, hear new stories. The site was an ironworks in the 15th century, the castle that came afterwards didn’t survive Napoleon’s armies and the stones from the ruin were used to build a manor house. In the 1970s it was deserted and stayed like that for decades until new life was blown into it in 2018 and it became a non-profit space for creators of any kind “who seek outside of the institutional confines of market and university”: The Foundry, a site that “stresses that critical thinking is a way of living rooted in engagements with one another and with the environment”. Everybody is welcome and all are using and taking care of the shared space in a non-hierarchical way. Although the site was still privately owned, the goal was to create a legal model against real estate speculation and hand over 50% of the ownership to the to be founded Sindicato de la Tierra, which would make it impossible to sell it and safeguard its function of a free space, a model that could be used for other properties as well and would help collectives with similar goals as the Foundry to acquire a place to live and work..
In the week after my arrival we learned about different ways of commoning in Galicia (the commons are the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, commoning is a way to describe the commons as an actionable idea, not just a place. With commoning, rather than having everything decided for by markets or governments, it is possible to take matters in one’s own hands according to shared visions). The Sindicato de la Tierra and the Foundry itself are initiatives that attempt to construct a new type of commons to limit the hold of capitalism over our lives. Noortje Keurhof came to talk about the Brigadas Deseucaliptizadoras; a lot of Galicia’s common lands are covered in monoculture tree plantations, the eucalyptus trees are invasive, deplete the soil and form a risk in case of forest fires. The Brigadas work together with the local communities, removing the trees from common land.
Sabrina Rosina took us on a walk to reimagine and redefine territorial boundaries through the lens of botanical wisdom and gain insights into the symbiotic relationship between nature and human systems. Kilian Jörg talked about the car as a main driver and embodiment of the Homogenocene—the ecological era that is about the homogenization of biodiversity as a result of people—and discussed possibilities of undoing its auto-destructive homogenisation of landscapes, desires and economies. There was a debate about rural gentrification, two lawyers from Despacho came to explain the Sindicato de la Tierra, there was a communal work day and presentations by the Ukranian artists staying at the Foundry. On the last day, Dennis Schep presented his upcoming book “Bloom; Iron and the Theft of Space and Time”, written inspired by the Foundry’s history, Peyton Chipman and Siddiq Chan gave a workshop about fermenting and local products, Davoud Gerami showed us his movie “Age of Iron” and I gave a presentation about my walk. It was mainly improvised since I had prioritised spending time with everybody involved in the programme and the Foundry over sinking into all the material I collected and wrote during the walk. I used apples from the trees in the field outside to map my route, so that afterwards they could be transformed into community cider.
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