The Int. workshop of New Ruralities NERU focuses on the topics of WATER, SOIL, GROUND and FOREST in agricultural fisheries context in the western part of Galicia. Participants are selected by the partnerships universities: A Coruña (ES), UMinho Braga (PT), ETH (CH), ULB Brussels (BEL), UACEG Sofia (BGR) and POLITO (IT). A group from Chile (CHL) joins as a guest. The duration is 10 days.

WATER proposes to give TO READ, TO LISTEN and TO TASTE three river channels that irrigate settlements in their course towards the mouth in the Atlantic Ocean.

It dentifies a variety of architectures linked to fresh water. To put order it creates FILES OF IMAGES and sounds and videos. To explain the findings, it builds a GLOSSARY of words that gives meaning to an architecture which responds to cultural behaviours, either by a habit which survives (such as collecting water from the fountain) or by a speculative habit for an immediate future (such as those who will seek to cool off). A fanzine is edited TO BE READ.

It stops on an architecture, the water mill. Three types are distinguished. Firstly, the one recovered by the inhabitant for private use, to grind corn for food, its the exceptional case. Secondly, the one that is consolidated as a testimony of a collective memory, often without water and often inaccessible. Lastly, the one recovered as a claim for the tourist industry, usually monitored to avoid being vandalized and near main tourist attractions. A fourth type is avoided, the most widespread, the ruined and dismantled water mill. For the main three ways of being a “water mill”, 3 SHORT AUDIOVISUAL pieces are produced. That muiño (water mill in Galician) and muiñeira (folk Galician dance) are related is a fact and is identity. The proposal is about LISTENING.

Finally, the persistent habit is put in value. Drinking water from a source is a simple gesture that is routinely practiced. Water springs almost anywhere in this region. Proposing a TASTING SESSION is to train the palate and to re-contextualize water as a select product. The planetary threshold of the liquid element, in the context of the climate crisis, has been exceeded. Usual gestures today, perhaps, will not be tomorrow. We offered tap water and spring water from two different sources TO BE TASTED and a moment of reunion to be shared.

Participants: Xan, Ivet, Luis, Martín, Veselina, Célia and Martina (and the visit of Lea)

Collaborations: Fundación RIA and Concello de Porto do Son. [An exhibit by NERU is expected in Brussels in 2025]