Bach and the Terrestrial
bach - yr heniaith to the rescue
“How can we not feel inwardly undone by the anxiety of not knowing how to respond…. either we deny the existence of the problem, or else we look for a place to land”
Bruno Latour
Y gair ‘bach’ yn y Gymraeg ydy ‘hook’, ‘hinge’, ‘nook’, ‘corner’, ‘bend’, ‘small’ and ‘minor’ in English.
Mae’r iaith Gymraeg yn hynafol ac wastad yn hyblyg ac yn cynnig rhywbeth mwy agored na ‘miniature’, gan awgrymu posibiliadau eang neu bwyntiau cychwynnol creadigol (gyda diolch i Huw Jones a awgrymodd Utopias Bach fel teitl, yn hytach na’r ‘Miniature Utopias’ gwreiddiol).
Mae Bach yn cyfeirio’n agosach at beth mae Bruno Latour yn ei alw’n ‘Y Daearol’ yn ei lyfr ‘Down to Earth - Politics in the New Climatic Regime’.
Mae Daearol yn ffordd o fod sy’n osgoi dychwelyd at hunaniaeth ac amddiffynfa ffiniau yn wyneb y bygythiad sy’n bodoli (newid hinsawdd, dirywiad yr eco-sustem ayb ayb). Mae’n dod a dau fudiad y mae moderneiddio’n wrthddweud ynghyd: ymlynu at y pridd ar un llaw ac ymlynu wrth y byd ar y llall.
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The ancient and ever flexible Welsh language offers something more open than miniature, suggesting a range of possibilities or creative starting points (with many thanks to Huw Jones who originally suggested Utopias Bach as the title, rather than the original ‘Miniature Utopias’).
Bach relates more closely to what Bruno Latour calls ‘the Terrestrial’ in his book ‘Down to Earth - Politics in the New Climatic Regime’.
The Terrestrial is a way of being that avoids a return to identity and the defense of borders in face of the current existential threat (climate change, eco-system collapse etc etc). It brings together two complementary movements that modernisation made contradictory: attaching oneself to the soil on the one hand, and becoming attached to the world on the other.
“The subversion of scales and of temporal and spacial fronteirs defines the Terrestrial. Each of the beings that participate in the composition of a dwelling place has its own way of identifying what is local and what is global, and of defining its entanglements with others…How? As always, from the bottom up, by investigation ”
- Bruno Latour
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A'r teimlad hwn – y teimlad ein bod ni’n delio gyda sefyllfaoedd ble nad ydi’r macro yn ddim ond ehangiad bach o’r micro – dan ni’n gobeithio ei fframio, gan osgoi’r tyllau ynysig, elitaidd, perffeithrwydd o Utopia a’r Bach!
“The power of solidarity with the plants is that with just a bit of soil and one seed, we can begin the work of transformation.
We can activate processes to heal the planet”
- Dr Natasha Myers
And it is this sense - the sense that we deal with situations where the macro is nothing but a slight extension of the micro - that we hope Utopias Bach will be framed, avoiding the isolationist/ elitist/perfectionist pitfalls of Utopia and Miniature!
Image: Lindsey Colbourne: Nantperis Distributed Orchard, 2020
Please Do Not Touch by Michael Pederson