Al Shifa’ Bint Al Hareth School: Desalination Device with Solar-Panel Canopy

Overview

Personal responsibility is what is most important for the future. A much more radical phenomenon than the Western Balkans is represented by the new territories in Acre, an Amazonian state in Brazil on the border with Peru: these are great examples of 21st-century communities that are building a sustainable present and, if you will, the future. I spent two months there earlier this year as part of a Sao Paulo Biennial residency. Over the last 15 years, land in Acre has been distributed to individual communities. This is approximately the same period during which Yugoslavia fragmented into its separate constituent republics. But while the fragmentation in Yugoslavia was extremely painful, what happened in Acre has been a happy fragmentation.

The Acrean communities practice small-scale economies, and I might add that this is important not only for their survival, but also for the survival of the world. They also have a unique approach to land ownership. In the new territories, the emphasis is not on the individual owning land and extracting resources from it solely for his own benefit, but on the collective ownership and sustainable management of natural resources for the benefit of the whole community. One might say this smells of communism, or that it presents a direct critique of capitalism. Far from it. This strategy is not about ideology, but about local knowledge. Here, the existence of the individual is understood essentially as coexistence. Individuals and communities are accountable for themselves and to others. That’s self-organisation for you, and yes, it is possible to practice an existence beyond ideological constructs.
Marjetica Potrc

From an interview with Anna Daneri, published in Italian as “Europe Lost and Found”, Marjetica Potrc e Kyong Park: “Ritorno al futuro”, Flash Art Italy (October–November 2006): pp.110–111


This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 8.