Fields of Power: Sovereignty, Survival, and Resistance
Live Project
2024-25 MA cohort
Table 1 PDF
Infra-ordinary Politics in the Avocado BeltTable 2 PDF
Weaponized DisruptionTable 3 PDF
Through three critical lenses - Michoacán’s avocado belt, besieged Gaza, and European farmers' protests - Fields of Power interrogates the complex and often violent entanglements within global agricultural landscapes, exploring how power, sovereignty, and resistance shape food systems across distant yet interlinked geographies.
These narratives offer the opportunity to dig into the complex infrastructure of control underlying modern agriculture. In Michoacán, the normalisation of violence and exploitation in avocado production reflects global demand and intersects with organised crime’s influence over local economies and environments. Meanwhile, Gaza’s food sovereignty, persistently compromised by Israeli blockade, unfolds as a landscape where survival is dictated by militarised control of resources and disrupted aid. Finally, Europe’s farmers protests underscore farmers’ struggle against both state policies and corporate agribusiness interests, as they navigate the dual demands of innovation and survival within centralised agricultural systems.
Together, these perspectives illuminate how the seemingly ordinary - from avocado cultivation to wheat flour distribution and tractor protests - reveals deeper conflicts over autonomy, life, and land. This exhibition calls for critical reflection on these infra-ordinary occurrences that, while often overlooked, shape and disrupt entire realities.
Guided by Lina Attalah, Guest Professor Forensic Architecture
These narratives offer the opportunity to dig into the complex infrastructure of control underlying modern agriculture. In Michoacán, the normalisation of violence and exploitation in avocado production reflects global demand and intersects with organised crime’s influence over local economies and environments. Meanwhile, Gaza’s food sovereignty, persistently compromised by Israeli blockade, unfolds as a landscape where survival is dictated by militarised control of resources and disrupted aid. Finally, Europe’s farmers protests underscore farmers’ struggle against both state policies and corporate agribusiness interests, as they navigate the dual demands of innovation and survival within centralised agricultural systems.
Together, these perspectives illuminate how the seemingly ordinary - from avocado cultivation to wheat flour distribution and tractor protests - reveals deeper conflicts over autonomy, life, and land. This exhibition calls for critical reflection on these infra-ordinary occurrences that, while often overlooked, shape and disrupt entire realities.
Guided by Lina Attalah, Guest Professor Forensic Architecture
