Landmark : towards and alternative testing range, Vieques, Puerto Rico

Abstract

How does land differentiate itself from other land by the way that it is marked? What implicit power relations are evidenced in these land marking processes? Whose interests are served in the designation of certain places for preservation and others not? What are the strategies for reclaiming marked land? What are the stakes? How does one articulate an ethics of land use? Who decides what is worth preserving and what is worth destroying? Landmark is a working concept as well as an artistic proposition which considers the multiple and complex ways in which land is marked. Focusing on the contested United States Navy Training Facilities in Vieques, Puerto Rico, Landmark: Towards an Alternative Testing Range attempts to create a platform for cross-border exchanges, between local reclamation struggles and global resistance movements. By focusing on the area of greatest destruction, the inner range, as a metaphoric as well as physical ground from which to begin and engage in dialogue, Landmark, considers the possibility of sharing wounds across space and time, through the creation of a transitional geography, one between destruction and recovery.