Landscapes of Care
Weaving nature and culture through environmental care practices
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Abstract
Valparaiso is currently in a state of environmental abandonment that threatens the unique coexistence of rural and urban socio-spatial practices in the peri-urban areas of the city. Local practices of animal husbandry and family farming are dependent on the abundance of water in the streams and the ecosystem of sclerophyll forests. The expropriation of these environmental commons increasingly affects not only nature but the most marginalized inhabitants of Valparaiso as well. In this context, post-humanist perspectives position my theoretical studies and the project takes up the challenge of deconstructing the seeming opposition between nature and culture. I envision the intervention as an environmental care centre that forms an integral part of the forest. It allows the mutually reinforcing coexistence of local socio-spatial practices and ecosystems. The design acts as a fragment that is able to gradually expand in time. As the forest grows so does the project. Poetic writing and spatial metaphors are the main ingredients of my methodology that allowed me to design the intervention as a spatial mediator not only between nature and culture but also between landscape and building, interior and exterior, writing and drawing.