story – Page 4 – Medland Project

Meeting Antoni Font Gelabert

While staying in the port town of Agios Kirykos in Ikaria island, we met with Antoni Font Gelabert. Antoni has been involved in environmental protection and sustainability for over 30 years, including seven years of being a board member of Greenpeace International. He is currently working on two projects. The first, Pandion, is an environmental consultancy firm. As he explains, Pandion is the Latin name of the fishing eagle, since they mostly work in marine conservation. The second is Ocean Observer, a project that aims to introduce electric boats into operation, from installing electric engines to borrowing electric boats to non-governmental organisations.

Coming from Mallorca and having expertise in the Balearic Islands, Antoni visits Greek islands every year for the past 12 years. Connected to both these places, he transfers his experiences from home to the processes that the Greek islands are undergoing now. As he says, he is interested in seeing and understanding how the same processes that have destroyed Mallorca are acting in different places.

“I come from a place that is strongly saturated by human pressure. Mallorca is growing at the rate of the full population of Samos each year. In the coming years, Mallorca will grow by 300 000 people, ten times the population of Samos. So mainly the challenges and the problems we detect have to do with this overcrowding and the pressure of tourism. But not only tourism: there are people who want to come to Mallorca because Mallorca has very good infrastructure, very good transport and all these things that are fantastic for any project or business. In fact, of the 80 000 people who come to live there each year, 50 000 go away because they don’t find their real dream. So Mallorca is what I call a dream shredder: a shredder that destroys the dreams of 50 000 people whose dreams don’t come true. Because the pressures and the competition are really hard. But the rules of neoliberalism say that everything must go in the direction of growth.”

“On our islands we have released the ropes and we are drifting in terms of the relation of people with nature. And here, of course, this is starting to happen. But when we come here, we feel like in the Baleares 50 years ago. There is internet, there is everything that is in our islands, but many ways of doing are still old fashioned. And that has a lot of value: I love the old fashioned way of relating to nature. In the basic sense, I feel at home.”

He talked about where he sees the current problems of the Mediterranean – and the ways to solve them.

Three faces of Lesbos

Lesbos lately became famous for the „most unbearable refugee camp in the world“ as they call it here. Now, we might already have forgotten about it, but the hard reality in the packed camp of Moria and people waiting for years to get asylum rights, is a part of daily life on the island. And: People are still coming and drowning on their way to Europe.

At the harbour, visitors of fancy coffee bars and refugee families fishing coexist quite separately. ut there is a minority of locals and mostly foreigners who run projects & activities that are extremely valuable for the many lost on Lesbos…depressed, with no future and especially with nothing to do.

Europe turns a blind eye and the Greek government obeys Europe by ignoring
refugees needs, especially in legal processes. This should convince Afghans, Syrians, and many Africans NOT to cross over at all!

“I can see - in the future - the Mediterranean Sea full of blood since you cannot stop people from escaping violence at home“ 26-year-old Omar from Syria stated. In April 2017 he started refuge4refugees- an NGOo working on Lesbos and Samos.

We stayed much longer than we thought and got closer to many more heroes…VIDEO

Embraced by Samothraki: The mountain in the Sea

“Either you love it - or you hate it and you have to leave immediately” was a sentence repeated by many. Especially the ones that migrated and live here now for years…and their love affair goes on. They are the active population for the needed changes in a land of “no compromises”
voice: Giorgos Maskalidis >>> video

Making a “story” Bojan explains

"To do the story it is to connect to a person because this stories are personal stories. A person that jumped over the fence. This means that it is someone who fells connected to the place, developing his/her own ways of sustainable living and who is also acting for the community well-being. It is not so important what she, he is doing, but HOW and WHY.“ >> video

Christodoulos and Ulysses traveling together: over the Marmara Sea to the Bosporus / Troy and Constantinople

Here are our news from Turkey: Christos - doctor and psychiatrist - sailed through the Dardanelles, the Marmara Sea and the Bosporus to two metropolis: Troy and Istanbul. For the Turkish part of the trip, Bojan and Eleonora joined Christos on his boat. >> video

PS : The fist team of 2019 MEDLand storytellig-project is related to the last recorded story in 2018: Christodoulos is the heart of the team now - and the focus of the story. How comes? We are four now, plus one.. Eleonora from Berlin, Germany, connected to the project through Workaway-platform. Her skills are journalism - audio, with a finger in video also.

Christodoulos and Ulysses traveling together : The knowledge about Philoktitis and the healing properties of terra limnea

Here are our news from Limnos: On this island, Christos - doctor and psychiatrist - is guided by an ancient story involving a hero and a snake.
In the Odyssay Homer tells the story of Philoktitis. He was a great hero of the Trojan war. One day he was bitten by a snake - an incurable wound. And the generals - also Ulysses - betrayed him and decided to leave him to die on the island of Limnos. Philoktitis was very weak, but just when his life seemed to come to end, he took some clay from the ground in the cave where he was hiding. He put it onto his wound - and it healed.

project in Palestine :

Eyad Tamallah, 20 ....I have many dreams. The big dream is for the world to be in peace. I believe that peace will start from the people themselves and not from the government...

I was born in Quira but I live in Ramallah. I study engineering at Birzeit University. I love to do things where you can see changes. The purpose of engineering is to make life easier for people. I think this is a big purpose. I also love philosophy. To learn about society. For a young person, to build your future, it is good to go to the city. It has more opportunities and you can meet people from different places. You can get a wider perspective so I think this is important. But I also really like coming back to the village during the weekends, holidays. I like the way people here are together, the family evenings, how they love each other. When I am here I do agricultural work and I feel I am part of the village. I do a lot of traditional farming. Here I get a lot of knowledge. I think it is important to work with the land. When you are in contact with nature, you get a very deep connection with yourself. I think this will make you stronger, wiser.

I have many dreams. The big dream is for the world to be in peace. I believe that peace will start from the people themselves and not from the government. This is my big dream, that people find peace in their hearts. I see my future here in Palestine. I think you should help your society, your country, the place where you live and where you share your memories. But I would love to go for a trip somewhere. I wish to go to the sea. To see the other side of our land. As a young man I can’t go to Jerusalem, to the sea, Haifa, Jaffa. So I wish to go there.

BOOK-preview

During 10 days in July 2018, anthropologist Barbara Vodopivec and me did 100+ interviews with selfportraits in the country of Palestine – cities and villages in the West Bank. The result is unique, nothing I could have imagined beforehand. It presents a parallel life, deeply rooted in heartfelt relationships between people, as well as to the land. Land as a space that provides everything necessary for life, as well as culture and history. The wisdom based on the intelligence of heart, which goes beyond unconscious survival patterns of human nature, is very valuable for everyone of us, because we are all to some extent exposed to the pressures of domination, exploitation, control, violence. It is the way to find a peaceful transition to the next step of our evolution in harmony with all beings.
At least half of the Palestinians are scattered around the world, but remain connected with the land and the people in Palestine. In this way, the wisdom they developed is also spreading around the world. The situation is similar to the side effect of the occupation of Tibet since 1950. More than half of the Tibetans live outside of Tibet, spreading Buddhist wisdom all over the world as an important mankind’s endeavor to understand life and develop peaceful ways of coexistence. It is based on compassion, which is also a common point with Palestinian wisdom. It lies in their hearts.
What also became clear to me during our time in Palestine is that Jewish people, through their centurieslong struggle for survival, developed extreme intellectual consciousness. The latter drives and motivates us “from the opposite side” to the intelligence of heart. To this day, these two fundamentally different worlds have not found a peaceful dialogue. When talking about the future, many of our Palestinian interlocutors stressed that the most important goal should be peaceful coexistence for ALL in Palestine, which also includes the settlers who took over the Palestinian land.

PALESTINIAN YOUTH AND SEEDS OF THE FUTURE

introduction from the book by Barbara Vodopivec, anthropologist, Society for Human Rights Humanitas, Slovenia

How do young people in Palestine see themselves? How do they live their lives, what do they dream about and what are their hopes for the future? With this book we try to give a glimpse into the way youngpeople in Palestine think about these questions. Thisis not a research about Palestinian youth or a holisticrepresentation of their lives. Rather, it is an artproject, a mosaic of images and a story about the way they understand themselves and the place andtime in which they live.

Through the use of self-portrait photography and short interviews we hope to capture young people’s voices, particularly their experience and expressionof a personal and collective identity. The portraits,which always place an individual against his or her background, explore identity from a very intimate, individual perspective but always in relation to thebroader environment. Personal and collectiveidentities are closely interconnected and in the narrative of the young people, the harsh politicaland economic situation further intertwines the two.When young people talk about their own lives theyalso talk about Palestine. When they describe their home they also describe their country. In theirnarrative Palestine is not something abstract but what they experience and express through their daily life – through work, dance, sport, studies, art,architecture, friendship, family. As many emphasize,due to the struggle for freedom and justice,Palestine is in everything they do. This means thatpersonal dreams are impossible to separate fromthe hopes and aspiration for a Palestinian future.

The portraits and interviews thus aim to tell a story of how young people feel their identity, how they experience it through their personal self as well as through the place in which they live, and in relationto people they live with, or are separated from. Forthe context of Palestine, the latter is particularly important, with Palestinians living divided betweenthe West Bank, Gaza, and the rest of the world. Thisseparation, together with the system of oppression, discrimination and colonization which makes it almost impossible for people to travel, creates a distance that many young people try to overcome in their imagination by pointing to their emotional attachment to places and people they have only heard about, either through friends, parents orgrandparents.

The people we met were outspoken about the way the political and social context they live in limits theirdreams and possibilities for the future. And the sadness and anger this causes. Yet they alsoexpressed an incredible perseverance, resilience andhopefulness. Despite insecurities that perpetuatetheir lives young people stress the importance oflooking forward and struggle for change. Their dreams and imagination of a different future are not to be excluded from this change.

All the photos are self-portraits. While thephotographer set up the photo studio it was thepeople themselves who took the portraits. This so called Selffish Studio developed by the Slovenianphotographer Bojan Brecelj enables people to express themselves in a creative way, making themnot only participants but co-authors of the project.

Every portrait was followed by a short interviewwhich is partially published together with the photo. The photo studio was set up on different locations – streets, universities, youth centres, parks, cafes.Aside from few exceptions most of the people wereselected randomly. Conversations took place in English or in Arabic with the help of a translator.

During our ten day stay in Palestine we visited East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah andHebron, always with the surrounding areas. People wemet live in these cities for various reasons: some were born there while others moved to the area to work,study, or are only passing through. These mix of people with different personal backgrounds shows the flow of the cities and its interconnectedness, the mobility, which although limited, it is still taking place.

During our stay in Palestine we also planned to visit Gaza yet we were not able to obtain permission toenter. Unfortunately, we were also not able to meetPalestinians living inside the 1948 territory, the importance of which was stressed by several peoplewe met. Hopefully, this is something we will be able to do another time in the future.

Lastly, we would also like to mention that both authors of the publication are form Slovenia and donot live in Palestine. This of course had an impact onthe way we approached the project, on the set up ofthe studio, on the questions we asked and the final selection for the publication. Our voices are thus impossible to exclude from the publication. This istherefore not just a book about the way young people see themselves, but to a certain extent, it is also connected to the way we see lives of youngpeople in Palestine.

Project is exibited first time in Ljubljana /SLO/-Galerija Bolka Gornji trg 16, till 22 of November - please connect us to the next place to exibit and netwoork on, bojan