INTRODUCTION
The general introduction draws on the overall context of the project as well as the specific reasons for its emergence. In this case, the role of Western Macedonia within the socio-economic context of Greece. The method of analysis involves temporalities, tying cause-and-effect relations in a non-linear matter, delineating different images of the region, and showing the correlation between certain events and the current phase of West Macedonia's existence in the city/non-city continuum. On the verge of another important event for the region, which is the phasing-out of coal combustion, the project uses that as a motive leading to the design of the three objects of intervention.
“city” and “non-city”
For decades, for the needs of rapid development, infrastructure has been creating new systems, conquering new regions, and solving problems with solutions whose consequences are incomprehensible to us. Years of focusing primarily on “the city”, subordinated the surroundings to its greater authority. Urban areas, in their existence, were never self-contained. Their logic has been always supported and supplied by surrounding areas. The urbanisation processes were dependable on their production capacities, often limiting and predetermining the expansion.[1] The confined logistics of localized productivity allowed for a clear relation, as well as division between cities and their hinterlands.[2] The process of industrial acceleration, along with the rapid development of the infrastructure, diminished those rules and allowed for much greater distances between cities and their supply zones. Profit-oriented development created new scales, blurring the boundaries between urban territories. The logic of division between the “city” and “non-city”, or “urban” and “non-urban”, became obsolete.
Cities and non-cities are not separate domains but are closely intertwined and mutually dependent[3]. Operational zones have been highly absorbed into the process of urbanization. Allocating regions to monothematic supply hubs often exploits them irretrievably. Such strong, highly dependent relations are difficult to amortize. In consequence, when infrastructure becomes obsolete, little to no opportunities remain for the people in terms of social impacts and ecological costs. While planetary hinterland covers nearly 70 per cent of the land, there is no clear approach to studying and understanding it.[4] This raises questions, to what extent will territories of hinterlands be exploited and what will be their role after they become obsolete? By closely examining the case of Western Macedonia, this work aims to investigate such relationships and their potential future. The region has already become a monofunctional, ecologically devastated landscape. Constantly hollowing out socially, culturally, and geologically[5], Western Macedonia must undergo another shift. This calls into question the future shape and role of the hinterland, which of the context and conditions this project intends to examine.
Powerhouse
The region of West Macedonia is an example of a hinterland in a contemporary understanding of this term. It is controlled by modernity with certain technological unawareness. Responsible for over 40% of Greece’s total energy production, it is subordinated to the role of the country's economy’s powerhouse.
Even though it is located hundreds of kilometres from large urban areas such as Athens or Thessaloniki; it became an integral part of the urban fabric. The production of electricity is a direct response to the usage of a single moment. In that respect, flipping a switch in Athens or Thessaloniki can cause the turbine of the Agios Dimitrios Power Plant to start spinning. The mutual relationship between production, and capital is binding and necessary for the existence of the urban as a whole. Its existence relies on contributing to production and supply. Just as urban areas could not exist without production spaces, today’s West Macedonia is not economically self-sufficient due to the monopolisation of extraction activity.
Greece pledged to eliminate coal-powered electricity production by 2028. This ends the phase of one type of exploitation process and creates a task for Western Macedonia to reinvent itself. The loss of importance of the region as an energetic hinterland foreshadows large consequences for its economy. Territory built around the idea of a production zone will become obsolete. Land, once conquered, now must undergo another transition process. This illustrates the fragility of the region, being a “sacrifice zone”, entangled in the toxic process of supplying profit-oriented capitalism.
[1] Brenner N. (2014) Implosions / Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization
[2] Ibid.
[3] Brenner N. (2014) Implosions / Explosions: Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.