Carrascal
2024
Project created during the Joya: AiR arts residency.
On the border of Andalusia and Murcia is an isolated area that was once a hotbed of agriculture. A fat river slashed the ground in two, used by local farmers to cultivate almonds and olives. Its waters also fed the pine plantations - the Carrascal - found on either side of the river bed. Now the water is gone, the almond and olive groves reduced to single trees kept alive by black hoses that lay in the dirt like engorged snakes. The area is still beautiful, but it is a beauty in brittle decay. An exploration of this borderland raises a question: Is this what we can expect such areas to look like as we move further into the climate crisis era? Efforts over the past twenty years to reverse the effects of aridification have ended in failure. There is no topsoil left. There are no animals. There is scant arable land. Tracts such as these are the poster children of what is to come - and it should be enough to terrify us into urgent action.
