National Parks are vast territories defined by complex political and bureaucratic protocols. They contain human settlements, ecosystems and powerful ideas of regional and national identity, rhetoric, exclusivity, nostalgia, territory, colonialism and utopianism. This year, ADS2’s projects are set in this ‘condition’.

The designation of National Parks is not only a collective statement of what we value about our environment, but also our societal vision of the ‘best’ of what we have and what we are. While these places allude to permanence, they are also loaded with conflicting and contradictory visions of what this permanence might mean. Designation can suppress as well as celebrate, exclude as well as nurture. When we consider the designation and design of the National Park, we are therefore confronted with urgent questions about the agency of humanity in the context of a world in crisis.

Ahmed Belkhodja, David Knight and Diana Ibáñez López