The Frontera Agricola in the Studio
Often residencies and trips indirectly influence the work but they are rarely meaningful in the place from whence I come, Europe. I want to change this with Colinas, the Frontera Agricola and Brazil.
This Frontera Agricola is on the edge of civilisation and is being exploited in order to maintain our economic system in Europe. Its existence and its relationship with Europe are similar to colonialism without the responsibility of civilisation. Colinas has been an Irish Mission for 40 years and part of an international network of marginalised communities who have been the subject of an Irish civilising project.
When I return to Europe I would like to do a series of studio talks in order to create a context for the work. Colonialism, globalisation and the civilising mission are the paradigms, I would like to use to light the work and create a conversation about the meaning of these painted objects, I will be working on.
Colonialism is a duality of us and them. The centre is defined in opposition to a periphery. This periphery is a projection of the centre’s unconscious, it includes not only far off places but all who are marginalised and exists in the shadow of the centre. The centre expands its control through the concept of progress which is made possible through exploitation of the periphery. Exploitation in the form of goods and services are exchanged for the knowledge of how to use them, civilisation.
Globalisation is an a global interdependent economic system which encourages financialisation of economic activities in order to export costs and import profits. The effect is to centralise power into financial centres who thus control decisions through capital flows. The justification for this system is found in the peace that economic interdependence encourages in order to function efficiently. It is however violent when dealing with those who are involved in non financial economic activities. This is often confused with the democratic peace theory while it discourages interstate conflict, it does not encourage intrastate peace.
Civilising mission comes from the time of empire and the desire to homogenise territories. It is a fundamental part of exploitation because it aims to normalise behaviour. In colonialism it makes exploitation easier and justifies it morally and in globalisation it creates new markets by the expansion of the concept of centre and thus a threat to the system. The civilising mission can be a bridge between us and the other. The various churches are also vectors of civilisation as is Europe, through their norming of behaviour they increase potential actors.