Jaime Izquierdo and Manuel Carrero will lead the ‘Art and Landscape’ series of debates organised by LABoral
The talks are opened with the presentation of the books ‘Asturias región agropolitana’ [Asturias, Agropolitan Region] and ‘La casa de mi padre’ [My Father’s House] by Jaime Izquierdo on this Thursday 19th April from 6.30 pm in the Chill-out space at the Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial
A view of the South Courtyard, where the ecoLAB activities take part. Photo:LABoral
As part of the ecoLAB activities, an art and ecology programme by LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, the series of debates Arte y paisaje, dos visiones de un mismo territorio [Art and Landscape: Two Visions of the Same Territory] starts this Thursday, and will include two talks by the writer and researcher in rural areas, Jaime Izquierdo, and by the architect and urban planning expert, Manuel Carrero. In these sessions, both contributions will be followed by reflection on how art and contemporary visual creation can contribute to the building of the landscape and territorial development.
ecoLAB is a laboratory for experimentation in ecology, art and open electronics, driven by LABoral. It aims to help create subjectivities and relationship dynamics with the biosphere and its ecosystems through the implementation of eco-technologies (high-tech and low-tech). It operates as a node of knowledge that generates education, research and production areas focused on the ecological, social and technological challenges facing today’s society.
On Thursday 19th from 6. 30 pm there will be a guided tour around the ecoLAB spaces and an explanation of the activities which will be included in this project by LABoral throughout 2012. At 7 pm, the Chill-out area at the Centre will host the talk and presentation of the latest publications by Jaime Izquierdo, Asturias Región Agropolitana [Asturias, Agropolitan Region] and La casa de mi padre [My Father’s House]. The first of these examines the potential for territorial development in Asturias in agropolitan terms. The second is a narrative proposal, by means of the methodological tool, which outlines a futuristic design and management exercise of rural territories in the 21st Century. Entrance is free of charge.
After this, on Saturday 26th May, coinciding with ecoLAB’s monthly session, the architect and town planner Manuel Carrero will give a talk on Paradigmas de sostenibilidad urbana [Urban Sustainability Paradigms], which will look at how town planning can contribute to urban sustainability by focusing on the transformations in the peri-urban settings of the metropolitan areas in Asturias, and on what new forms of residential occupation are taking place, as well as on the implications of agriculture and landscaping management.
As an addition to this activity, a field trip to a complex urban segment in the city Oviedo-San Julián de los Prados will take place - an activity organised in collaboration with the Grupo de Medio Ambiente y Urbanismo del 15M [the 15 M Environment and Urban Planning Group] and Centro Cultural La Madreña, Oviedo.
Jaime Izquierdo Vallina (Asturias, 1958) has worked for over 30 years to overcome industrial contexts that have brought socioeconomic aspirations into conflict with the needs of heritage conservation in the region.
He is a firm follower of the method of access to knowledge set out by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza [Free Institute of Learning] based on two ideas: firstly that of Leon Tolstoy, “take a close look at your village and you will find the universe”; and secondly, that of the Asturian friar Toribio de Santo Tomás y Pumarada who wrote in 1711: “the conservation of a thing is its continuous production, and conserving is considered as the same as producing, and to be conserving a thing is the same as always producing it.
Izquierdo is a public servant in the Government of the Principality of Asturias and has held a variety of posts in local, regional and national public administration, all of which have been related to environmental and territorial development issues. In 1991 he won the European Award for Conservation, bestowed by the British Conservation Foundation and Ford Europe, for the implementation of his ideas formulated in a proposal for eco-development in the Eastern region of Asturias.
In addition, he has been awarded with other prizes and has published numerous newspaper articles and books, among which stand out: Manual para agentes de desarrollo rural: ideas y propuestas para moverse entre la conservación del patrimonio y el desarrollo local (2002) [Manual for Rural Development Workers: Ideas and Proposals to Manoeuvre Between Heritage Conservation and Local Development (2002)] ; El regreso del señor Hoffmann y otros relatos de ambiente entero (2005) [The Return of Mr Hoffman and Other Stories of the Whole Environment (2005)]; Marqueses, funcionarios, políticos y pastores: crónica de un siglo de desencuentros entre naturaleza y cultura en Los Picos de Europa (2006) [Marquises, Public Servants, Politicians and Pastors: Chronicle of a Century of Disagreement Between Nature and Culture in the Picos de Europa (2006)]; and Asturias, región agropolitana: las relaciones entre el campo y la ciudad en la sociedad posindustrial (2008) [Asturias, Agropolitan Region: Relations Between the Countryside and the City in Postindustrial Society (2008)], of which the broader concepts in these will be elaborated in the talk at this ecoLAB workshop, as well as those in his most recent work published a few weeks ago: La casa de mi padre: manual para la reinserción de los territorios campesinos en la sociedad contemporánea [My Father’s House: Manual for the Reinsertion of Rural Territories in Contemporary Society] .
Manuel Carrero de Roa (Madrid, 1964) is an architect specialised in urban planning from the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (1990) and in Land-Use Planning from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (1992). A civil servant in the Principality of Asturias Government since 1993, he has been a member of the work group “La ciudad socialmente sostenible” [“The Socially Sustainable City”] of the Congreso Nacional de Medio Ambiente [National Environment Congress] (CONAMA) and has taken part in inter-regional cooperation projects on Sustainable Development and in the First Action Programme for the implementation of the Territorial Agenda of the European Union. He has also participated as an educator in a wide range of training schemes, which include the Master’s in Urban Management and Territorial Development by the Centre for Cooperation and Territorial Development (CeCodet) of the Universidad de Oviedo from 2007 to 2008. His doctoral thesis is entitled: “La sostenibilidad del crecimiento residencial en baja densidad. El caso del Área Metropolitana de Asturias" [The Sustainability of Low Density Residential Growth. The Case of the Metropolitan Area of Asturias”], and was completed in the Geography Department of the Universidad de Oviedo.
