Within the Transformative Territories project, Inland coordinated two major research-creations in northern Spain in 2024–2025. Each project brought together artistic practice, environmental humanities, scientific inquiry and local, land-based knowledge systems. Developed respectively by local artist and architect Sergio Montero Bravo and by COAL Prize laureate Martha Fely, these initiatives exemplify the programme’s ambition to support ecological transition through transformative artistic methodologies while fostering transnational collaboration across European territories.

THINK A FOREST – Regenerative System 2

Research-creation by Sergio Montero Bravo
Northern Spain, Inland Village

Hosted at the Inland Village, THINK A FOREST – Regenerative System 2 unfolded as a transdisciplinary investigation into the ecological and social consequences of eucalyptus monoculture and recurrent forest fires in the northern Spanish landscape. Led by architect and research-creator Sergio Montero Bravo, the project brought together artists, scientists, community groups, and visiting researchers in a collective attempt to reimagine the forest as a relational, living system shaped by care, knowledge-sharing, and hands-on experimentation.

The research-creation began with collaborations rooted in TT’s methodological principles. An Inland Academy workshop introduced participants to the eucalyptus forest, followed by field research conducted with forestry engineer Álvaro Poo and designer-researcher Lily McCraith. This phase combined:

• Soil and plant analysis,
• Ethnobotanical mapping of local practices,
• An examination of forest policies and land-use dynamics.

Crucially, McCraith developed collaborative methods for “mapping from below”, resisting the conventional aerial perspective associated with administrative planning and ‘productive’ land use. These activities included:

• Pulping policy — a speculative divination of forest futures through papermaking, blending foraged eucalyptus with fragments of the Plan Forestal de Asturias to create a material and political reading of policy;
• Soil sensing — listening walks, sample-gathering, and soil chromatography workshops developed alongside Álvaro Poo.

Local knowledge played a decisive role thanks to an extended collaboration with Proyecto Roble, a grassroots association dedicated to reducing fire risk while supporting rural resilience. Their involvement exemplified TT’s commitment to informal, horizontal knowledge exchange—bridging scientific insight, everyday rural experience and artistic exploration.

Following the research phase, the project moved into hands-on experimentation with the construction of a micro-architectural Forest Pavilion, conceived as a mountain hut dedicated to learning, gathering, and ecological imagination. Both the process and the resulting structure materialise TT’s pedagogy of transformative learning through action, embodiment, and situated practice.

THINK A FOREST – Regenerative System 2 strengthens TT’s contribution to building a culture of sustainability by advancing alternative artistic, scientific and political narratives that foster ecological and solidarity-based transition.

From Mountain to Mountain

Research-creation by Martha Fely
Northern Spain, Inland Village

COAL Prize laureate, artist, shepherd, and cheesemaker Martha Fely undertook her research-creation at Inland in 2024–2025. Educated at the École Supérieure d’Art de Clermont Métropole and deeply shaped by her experience practising Pyrenean pastoralism, Fely’s work interweaves agricultural know-how with poetic and performative forms.

During her stay at Inland, Fely immersed herself in the local cheese-making process, a defining activity of Inland’s territorial life. This immersion generated a bidirectional exchange central to TT’s approach to informal learning:

• Fely shared techniques from Pyrenean pastoralism, including methods of herd management, transhumant rhythms, and cheese craftsmanship.
• Local practitioners transmitted their situated expertise in landscape management, shepherding, and land-based artisanal work.

This reciprocal engagement strengthened the relationship between her artistic vision and the lived realities of the territory, situating rural knowledge at the heart of ecological transition.

By merging Pyrenean traditions with the local ecological and cultural context, Fely contributed to developing collective methods for transformative artistic practice across European territories. Her research-creation reinforces the centrality of rural, land-based knowledge systems within broader discussions on ecological transitions, offering new ways of thinking through care, craft and interspecies coexistence.

Together, these two research-creations illuminate how Transformative Territories mobilises art as an active agent within ecological transition. Through participatory inquiry, embodied knowledge exchange, and experimental making, the projects led by Sergio Montero Bravo and Martha Fely demonstrate how the arts can nurture new imaginaries, deepen relationships with place, and support long-term socioecological resilience across European landscapes.

Read more at the Inland´s website