Har(d)vesting: On handling olive trees in the Lands of Lukova

Located on the steep hillsides that seem to fall sheer into the sea, the village of Lukova is crossed by a road that follows the lines of the land: one curve toward the coast, another into the recesses of the slope. This road, which appears to cut through the landscape, gives substance to a voice that knows the land, the history that has passed through it, and the forms of knowledge and practice that have shaped it.

Below the road, 22,000 century-old olive trees appear scattered across the ground. Above it, instead, 60,000 olive trees follow the hilly gradient, arranged in rows and series. At times, they seem to draw the landscape according to the logic of points, lines, and spaces found in morphological maps, embodying the institutional order of the agricultural policies of the socialist regime.

In the passage from land to trees, and from trees to oil, there is nothing “natural”: even the shape of the olive trees changes according to the way they are cared for. Through these passages, different aesthetics, styles, techniques, and purposes take form. Some practices follow one another, others alternate; some replace previous ones, while others resist the attempt to be replaced. Different structures of meaning thus enter into struggle over the definition of what it means to produce (extra virgin) olive oil.

In Lukovë, where the landscape is increasingly shaped by privatization and the pressures of tourism, M. has learned that survival means understanding the forces at play. On the one hand, he is forced to do so; on the other, he chooses to take part in the global flow of machines, ideas, and “universals”, drawing on local knowledge in order to challenge the very way in which oil is produced.

His is a form of local resistance that, rather than separating the land from its inhabitants, seeks to extend and strengthen their interrelations. It is a resistance that, on a broader scale, enters into competition with big corporations and state projects that would turn Lukova into a territory ready to be consumed, where its inhabitants become functional elements within profit-driven logics that benefit only a few.