This second part of the interview continues the conversation between Patrick Degeorges , Fernando García-Dory and Sergio Bravo, focusing on the conditions that enable long-term, situated artistic practices to operate at the territorial scale. Building on earlier discussions around collaboration and rural engagement, the exchange explores artistic facilitation, care, regeneration and the emergence of new institutional forms rooted in specific landscapes. Through concrete examples, the participants reflect on how artistic practices can sustain transformative processes over time and reshape relationships between communities, environments and modes of action.
Discover the first part of the interview !
Patrick Degeorges:
These practices take time. You need to build trust within a community and establish a form of legitimacy to work with and for them. But beyond that, you must ensure that what has been initiated can be sustained over decades if you want the effects to actually materialise.
From this perspective, you might need a new kind of institution—such as Inland. The question is: how is Inland attempting to become this type of institution?
For example, you have artists who maintain ongoing projects in certain areas of Spain for years. It’s not just a one-off; these are long-term connections. From these connections, new artists or practitioners can come in and contribute to the continuation or development of ongoing projects.
In a way, you act as an interface. If I understand correctly, this kind of interface could potentially be replicated in other territories. So, the question I’m trying to pose is: can this model of transformative action be reproduced elsewhere? Do you follow me?
I mean, to create conditions for long-term artistic practices to have an effect, you need local alliances to hold. That requires presence—you can’t just appear for a short residency and leave. How do you ensure that the work continues to impact the territory? Perhaps an institution—not necessarily state-backed, but present—is necessary to keep the intention alive, with both people and place.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
The village is a good example. I see it as a platform for this.
Fernando García-Dory:
Yes, absolutely. But also for example, The projects we include in Transformative Territories on the forest are rooted and act as infrastructures for durational engagement. Simple residencies or short-term projects don’t create the platform for artists to truly connect or contribute to something beyond the ephemeral. These projects guarantee continuity; each is like a chapter in a book.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
A good example, Fernando, is the School of Shepherds within the Inland Academy.
Patrick Degeorges:
It’s similar to what happened in Portugal with ITM. They were able to work with artists and see impactful transformations occur in the field because they had created local conditions for such work. This can be documented over time with the community. So, what we’re discussing is something analogous to what you mentioned earlier.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
Exactly. Though Fernando is deeply involved, so it might be easier for someone on the outside to observe the patterns than for him, who is immersed in it.
Fernando García-Dory:
That’s true. Asking me is like asking a fish about water.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
Which is why it’s part of my research—I can observe what’s happening and see Inland’s impact.
Patrick Degeorges:
Perhaps, if we can’t fully grasp it from the inside, we can analyse it from the outside—qualifying the infrastructure Inland has built to support long-term transformative practices in specific territories.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
We could do that through the Inland Village. Fernando saw the potential in transforming a traditional Spanish village. He knows the history of these structures: a small church, a main building for the leading family, and smaller buildings for others, connected to agriculture and herding.
Fernando reimagined this village to host artists. For instance, when I brought a group of architecture and arts students, we converted a stable into a space to host people. Rather than simply creating a cheese-making workshop, it became part of the School of Shepherds. Now we’re restoring another building to become the Ateneo, a library integrated into the school. It’s designed around agroecology knowledge and everything necessary to situate oneself within the struggles Inland addresses.
Patrick Degeorges:
Could you explain the School of Shepherds? We haven’t defined it yet, and it would help to understand its connection to the village.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
Fernando knows it better, but I’ll try. Inland began with the seed of the School of Shepherds, initially part of one of Fernando’s projects. He noticed that local shepherds struggled to recruit young people, who were uninterested in continuing traditional practices. So he envisioned a school that respected tradition but adapted to contemporary needs—comfort, connectivity, and so on.
Patrick Degeorges:
So the School of Shepherds was originally Fernando’s project, and the village gradually became the infrastructure to support it. Fernando himself isn’t a shepherd or an agronomist—he identifies as an artist?
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
I’d say he’s an agroecologist and shepherd disguised as an artist.
Fernando García-Dory:
It’s an interesting question; it relates to Duchamp’s idea of the “other artist.”¹
Patrick Degeorges:
Exactly. If you approach the school purely as an agroecologist, it might not succeed. But approached as an artist through the cultural sector, it can.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
And the Inland Academy exemplifies this approach. People could apply to spend a year or three, to exploring inland struggles and experimenting with projects based on their own backgrounds—from Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and elsewhere. Everyone who applies tends to be hybrid, much like Fernando.
Fernando García-Dory:
I should explain my background. I grew up with animals—my father had cows and horses, and he was an agronomic engineer. I then moved to the city and discovered drawing, studying fine arts. But I wanted to connect more directly with the land and create work that wasn’t solely dependent on the art market. I learned gardening through a project, then cheesemaking and shepherding. I designed the School of Shepherds also to train myself—I was the first student. In 2004, I spent five months with a shepherd in summer pastures. Since then, I’ve coordinated the course with a team of around ten technicians. In cheesemaking, we also teach students the biochemistry behind it.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
This demonstrates how Inland is fostering an economy that encourages long-term engagement.
Patrick Degeorges:
That leads to another point: the current art economy doesn’t support territorial projects. Artists are too disconnected to engage meaningfully with local challenges. To bridge art with territorial or ecological issues—biodiversity, forestry, shepherding—we need new economic models. What forms of economy have you seen or tried, and how is Inland proposing alternatives?
Fernando García-Dory:
We see the potential, the need, but most European artists today can’t truly engage territorially. Some can, but the prevailing art system, inherited from the “art for art’s sake” paradigm, is limiting. We aim to push artists’ capacities in that direction.
Our approach identifies how artists can meaningfully contribute, often collaborating with specialists—engineers, historians, or other experts. The artist’s input must be recognised as legitimate within these collaborative processes.
Funding can take multiple forms. For example, with an art theorist at the University of Kassel, we explored social-environmental impact bonds: public and private investment frameworks to sustain projects. Reforestation, for instance, carries risks—fires, tree death. Traditionally, public funding leads to inefficiencies. How could private investors assume this risk, with returns measured not in profit but in cultural or immaterial value?
It also shifts the artist’s role. In these social processes, the artist becomes a facilitator rather than an author of an artwork. Are we ready to relinquish the traditional position of power?
Patrick Degeorges:
I understand. It’s about rejecting authorship and the idea of the exceptional artist, and instead engaging relationally, taking pride in service to the community—not economic service, but care.
Fernando García-Dory:
Yes. Territorial transformation—positive environmental or social outcomes—often relies on traditional farming landscapes that sustain biodiversity and settlements. Historical practices like grazing or logging were sometimes unsustainable, but where balance was achieved, it reflects collective, long-term engagement.
Transformation is anonymous, gradual, and distributed—not the spectacular, singular intervention of a famous artist. It operates on scales of time, space, and engagement that surpass conventional notions of authorship.
Patrick Degeorges:
Exactly. One key insight from the Transformative Territories approach is that we need to rethink how we value an artist’s work. In these processes, what’s being valued isn’t a tangible object but the facilitation itself—architects designing their practice while engaging communities, bringing people together, supporting forestry or environmental work. Traditionally, this isn’t considered part of an artist’s role.
So, the question is: why is the artist’s touch important in facilitation? Where does artistic singularity manifest? How is it different from what a professional or technician might do?
Fernando, have you explored this? I recall in the MOOC you mentioned working on some kind of “bonds,” but I wasn’t sure whether you meant environmental or financial bonds.
Fernando García-Dory:
Yes, something along those lines. Social-environmental impact bonds. Essentially, it’s a financial mechanism within a network to support social and environmental projects.
Patrick Degeorges:
Let’s return to the main question. We need to rethink what it means to be an artist in connection with a territory. When an artist—or a practitioner such as an architect or designer—engages in community work or regeneration, they do it differently. They bring something beyond technical facilitation.
So what is this “artistic touch”? Why is it necessary to bring communities together, to create collective outcomes? What is the unique role of the artist, as opposed to a technician?
Fernando García-Dory:
It’s subtle. Technicians or experts follow tested processes, a series of steps to be implemented. Artists, on the other hand, often disrupt the process, question it, and explore what emerges. We introduce elements that awaken resonance, emotion, or even a sense of transcendence. It’s a mix of affective, emotional, and sometimes even sacred dimensions. For me, good art connects with these layers, even when religion no longer holds a central place in society.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
Exactly. A good artist thinks differently, represents something in a new way, or engages creatively. That’s crucial. From a design perspective, how we act also matters. There’s a creative element in finding ways to intervene when faced with challenges. Designers, artists, and even architects, when they discover the right “ingredients,” as we try to do at Inland, can create something entirely new and impactful.
Patrick Degeorges:
You use the term “religion” deliberately, as a way to connect people. But, for example, in the eucalyptus project—think the forest—what makes it an artistic project?
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
That’s the question we’re always asked.
To give an example, the approach to the eucalyptus project illustrates it well. First, we connected back to the pavilion we created for Kiruna. That pavilion supported a local economy, and we were already asking: what happens to this structure afterward?
We realised we were using considerable resources to build it, so we asked: can we extend its life? Can we avoid waste? Experimentally, we designed it to be dismantled. Then we brought it to Inland, without knowing exactly what it would become. Fernando noted there was a eucalyptus plantation in need of restoration, so we placed the structure there. We created a forest, but transformed it into a “forest pavilion.”
Fernando García-Dory:
Repurposing materials and uses is part of creating infrastructures to inhabit the forest. For example, with Inland Academy, we studied soil chromatography—examining how the soil retains damage—in a visual, interpretive way. Chromatography is ecological science, but we approached it visually.
We also developed other exercises. For instance, we printed all the regional forestry policies and turned the documents into pulp, which we mixed with eucalyptus materials collected from the forest, creating paper literally made from policy papers.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
So it’s really about the process, right?
Fernando García-Dory:
Yes, about rethinking the material itself. Paper is something we usually take for granted, but the infrastructure behind it is heavy. Northwestern Spain produces a large proportion of Europe’s paper from eucalyptus plantations, notably for brands like Navigator, found in nearly every office. The production has a huge ecological impact.
We also created a sound piece reflecting the similarity between the sounds of burning and rain, and introduced music—forest instruments like gamelan from Indonesia, played collectively using instruments made on site from natural materials.
Then we “sistered” this forest with one in Indonesia, collaborating through the Mondeland group. We also made sculptures using ceramics glazed with soils from the burned eucalyptus forest. Fire transformed the minerals, producing unique colours and textures.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
Fernando, could we say that the restoration of the eucalyptus forest drives these projects forward? The restoration itself isn’t the artwork; the artistic output emerges through what happens around it.
Patrick Degeorges:
Exactly. What matters is that, when facing a territorial challenge, you begin to imagine new forms, new ways of seeing, coexisting with, and planning with it. It’s not a single monumental effort.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
There are many layers. Placing the pavilion in that specific context, and allowing it to evolve through exploration, is part of the artistic output.
Patrick Degeorges:
Yes, and this brings us back to re-inhabiting. It’s a dialectic: re-inhabiting and being re-inhabited, transformed by the very process of habitation.
What you’re describing is this: we engage with a eucalyptus forest patch for its regeneration. Regeneration isn’t the end; it’s about building and caring for a relationship with the forest. Through this care, we ourselves are transformed, inspiring new forms of production—artistic, socio-artistic, new connections, and experiences. We are inhabited by what we are learning to re-inhabit.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
It leans towards ontology.
Patrick Degeorges:
Exactly—a chiasm between caring and being cared for. In French we say soignant–soigné: when you touch someone’s hand, their hand touches you too.
It’s the same here. By engaging in rehabilitation, you begin to dream differently; you are re-inhabited by the dreams of regeneration itself.
Fernando García-Dory:
You’re right—it transforms you. When we first approached the eucalyptus forest, I came from environmental activism that essentially hated the tree. The instinct was to eradicate it. But we started to rethink that position.
We developed speculative artworks, even using AI, imagining trees with distillation units, able to convert themselves into eucalyptus oil. This became an alchemical process: transforming poison into medicine.
Through this, I began to see the trees as companions. Together, we transitioned something unhealthy into something else. We designed a hammam structure where the burning leaves released heat used for distillation—destruction and transformation happening simultaneously. It became a narrative of preservation and regeneration, both emotional and ecological.
Patrick Degeorges:
That’s important, Fernando. It reminds me of a conversation with Gabriela about ArtMill, with a tree species affected by climate change. The question wasn’t just how to replace the damaged trees, but how to accompany their decline, to ensure a “good death,” a ritualised, meaningful process.
This is similar to what you’re describing with the eucalyptus. Artists shift perspective, asking different questions and rebuilding meaning around what is inevitably lost, rather than relying solely on technical regeneration or environmental ideology.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
That connects well to an earlier situation: in the forest with a mixed group, environmental scientists thought everything should be cut down, whereas artists considered these beings as living entities to care for.
Patrick Degeorges:
Yes! Instead of saying “we must remove these trees,” the question becomes: how can we help them die and transform into something else? And through that, we ourselves are reinvented as we reinvent the place. Fernando, would you agree?
Fernando García-Dory:
Exactly, that’s our approach.
Patrick Degeorges:
It’s subtle. It reminds me of Thierry Boutonnier’s work planting trees with people. At first glance, it’s simple: plant a tree together and “adopt” the work. But the meaning is entirely different. Through that gesture, everything transforms: relationships to place, to others, to oneself. The specificity of that process is deeply artistic.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
And isn’t that what art has always aimed to do? Even in a great painting?
Patrick Degeorges:
Exactly. It doesn’t diminish meaning or the exceptional quality of the artist. It simply relocates exceptionality. And this doesn’t preclude producing fine art—it’s about expanding the field of artistic activity. It allows local inhabitants, professionals from other disciplines, to become practitioners of change, with artists as facilitators helping others find their creative place in transformative processes.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
Yes, exactly.
Patrick Degeorges:
I’m proposing ideas here; do you have concrete examples?
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
Honestly, I’m enjoying the discussion—it’s hard to explain otherwise.
Patrick Degeorges:
I’m glad we’re aligned. I hope our interviews, methodological sheets, and eventual papers will become a shared corpus—something to build curricula, work in different contexts, deepen understanding, gather examples, and develop a common language. A simple language to discuss territorial transformation and, ultimately, change the cultural conditions for action.
Patrick Degeorges:
Yes, and it will allow us to create new situations, and perhaps new institutions.
Patrick Degeorges:
Yes—because when I use the word institution, I mean it in a very specific sense. In French, we distinguish between le pouvoir instituant and l’institué. Le pouvoir instituant refers to the creative power to institutionalise: to inscribe new uses, new ways of doing, new ways of addressing issues into time and society, and even to redefine what is or is not considered a problem.
What I hope is that projects like these can activate that instituting power. I truly believe we need new institutions to face the transformations we are currently experiencing.
We don’t yet know what these institutions should look like. But within ongoing projects, we can already see figures, seeds, or prefigurations of what they might become. That is precisely what we are trying to explore with Transformative Territories.
If you look at ArtMill, Inland, or Zone Sensible in France, you can already see forms emerging—new types of institutions where teaching, research, and action converge. These are often initiated by artists or cultural workers, but they involve much broader communities and address fundamental societal issues. And they seem to work. In that sense, these projects could already be understood as functioning institutions.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
I think that’s crucial. When I explain Inland to people working in sustainability or territorial transformation, they often ask: Is it replicable? Can it scale?
That’s how they tend to think. Local projects are seen as limited, as unable to generate wider impact. But I believe that impact emerges when many institutions work locally, as Inland does, and then connect with one another. It’s this constellation of local initiatives that creates real transformation.
Patrick Degeorges:
Yes. We’ve been discussing this question of scale for many years, particularly in theoretical and institutional debates around art, transformation, and effectiveness. One thing has become very clear to us: repeatability does not come through standardisation. It comes through inspiration.
Paradoxically, the more singular projects are, the more variations exist, and the more they encourage repetition. It’s a bit like Baudelaire’s Les Phares. Do you know it? Lighthouses along a coastline don’t guide ships through uniformity, but through distinct points of light that reveal where the rocks are.
In that poem, Baudelaire names great artists and poets—each singular, impossible to reproduce. No one can redo their work, yet they inspire others. And those who are inspired don’t imitate them directly; instead, they create their own work, in their own way.
That’s what I mean by imitation and replicability. It doesn’t function through reproducing the same structure everywhere, in a repetitive or standardised manner. It works through inspiration—through the desire to respond differently each time, to create something new, singular, and situated. These are artistic repetitions: repetitions that produce difference. And that difference is precisely what makes them powerful.
Sergio Bravo Josephson:
In that sense, standardisation isn’t interesting at all.
Patrick Degeorges:
Exactly. And that idea spreads very quickly—indeed, it already is spreading. That’s what I meant earlier.
What would be interesting now is to hear your thoughts on what we mean by institution.
Fernando García-Dory:
When you say it’s spreading very quickly, do you mean that more and more artists are working at the territorial level?
Patrick Degeorges:
Yes, absolutely. I see it more and more clearly. Through various programmes—such as the COAL Prize and others—I’ve been reviewing numerous databases and case studies. I’m also currently working with art schools in France, including the École des Beaux-Arts. Many of them are trying to open what they call territorial schools: schools that are directly connected to specific places and local realities.
Fernando García-Dory:
Or maybe you’re seeing it everywhere because you’re looking for it—like a scientist who suddenly starts seeing their research topic everywhere.
¹ Marcel Duchamp’s idea of the “other artist” refers to the active role of the viewer in the completion of the artwork: the work is not produced solely by the artist, but is fully realised through the interpretation, perception and experience of its audience. This notion challenges the authority of the artist as the sole source of meaning and frames the artwork as a process of symbolic co-production.
