CRITICAL SEEDS OF RESISTANCE LAUNCH WEEKEND
15.03. 19:30 PERFORMANCE SHAPING NARRATIVES BY AZIZA GORGI AND EMILY SARSAM (BROUDOU)
17.03. 18:00 SCREENING OF THE FILM DESERT PHOSFATE BY MOHAMED SLEIMAN LABAT (THE ARTIST WILL BE PRESENT)
AT ATERRATERRA LAB, PALERMO, ITALY
ATERRATERRA LAB, VIA GIACALONE 43, PALERMO
15.03. 19:30 PERFORMANCE SHAPING NARRATIVES BY AZIZA GORGI AND EMILY SARSAM (BROUDOU)
SHAPING NARRATIVES IS A PERFORMANCE WORK BY AZIZA GORGI AND EMILY SARSAM, TWO TUNIS-BASED ARTISTS AND RESEARCHERS. TOGETHER, WITH YASMIN HOUAMED, THEY CO-FOUNDED BROUDOU, AN ARTISTIC RESEARCH COLLECTIVE EXPLORING THE FUTURE OF FOOD IN TUNISIA.
SINCE 2021, THEY HAVE PUBLISHED TWO BOOKS ON THE POLITICS OF FOOD, THE FIRST FOCUSSING ON BREAD AND THE SECOND ON OLIVE OIL.
THE MULTISENSORIAL PERFORMANCE, WEAVING SCIENCE FICTION, SONG, TEXTILE, CERAMIC, TASTE AND CHOREOGRAPHY, IS A GLIMPSE INTO THEIR RESEARCH ON SHAPES OF BREAD IN TUNISIA AND THE NARRATIVES THEY REPRODUCE. ELEMENTS OF THIS PERFORMANCE WERE INSPIRED BY STORIES SHARED BY SI AMOR, A FARMER WHO MAINTAINS A SEED BANK IN AIN EL KARMA, A VILLAGE LOCATED IN THE TOZEUR GOVERNORATE IN THE SOUTH OF TUNISIA. HIS EXPERIENCE OF RESTORING A FIELD OF ELEUSINE, A PLANT THAT HAD BEEN DISPLACED AFTER THE 2ND WORLD WAR AND CULTIVATED AND PATENTED IN EUROPE, ALONG WITH OTHER SYMBOLS SUCH AS THE CLAY COKING VESSEL, THE GHANNAI, OR A WOVEN TALISMAN MADE OF WHEAT, HELP US TO IMAGINE A FICTIONAL WORLD THROUGH WHICH EXPERIENCES OF ENCLOSURE, DISPOSSESSION AND ALIENATION OF LAND, BODY, AND SOUL ARE UNEARTHED.
THE AUDIENCE IS INVITED TO TAKE TIME TO TUNE INTO THEIR SENSES. TO DEEPLY LISTEN, WATCH, AND TASTE. THE THREE TASTE EXPERIENCES ALL CONTAIN GLUTEN.
IN HONOR OF THOSE WHO CONTINUE TO CREATE, PROTECT AND TRANSMIT KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURE WHICH IS EMBODIED AND ORAL, WE HAVE DECIDED TO LEAVE NO MATERIAL TRACES THROUGH THIS PERFORMANCE AND EMPHASIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF EMBODIED EXPERIENCING OF RESEARCH AND ARCHIVAL MATERIAL.
THIS WORK WAS FIRST CREATED FOR CUM PANIS: BREAD AND ITS ECOLOGIES, A GROUP EXHIBITION AT LE19CRAC IN MONTBELIARD.
EMILY SARSAM IS A TUNIS BASED ARTIST, RESEARCHER AND CULTURAL PROGRAMER WHOSE WORK REVOLVES AROUND INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING, SOUND, POETRY AND FOOD. SHE IS ESPECIALLY INTERESTED IN THE POLITICS OF OLIVE OIL, COMMONING PRACTICES IN RURAL AND AGRICULTURAL CONTEXTS, AND THE IMPACTS OF COLONIALISM ON FARMING, FOOD SYSTEMS AND EATING HABITS. SHE ALSO RESEARCHES, DEVELOPS AND FACILITATES EMBODIED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS WITHIN THE ARTS IN THE FORM OF WORKSHOPS, CO-LEARNING PROGRAMS AND RESIDENCIES.
AZIZA GORGI IS A TUNISIAN ARTIST-DESIGNER WORKING AT THE INTERSECTION OF SCULPTURE AND DESIGN. EXPERIMENTING WITH MODES OF DISPLAY, CERAMICS, PRINT AND TEXTILES. SHE GRADUATED FROM THE ÉCOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE TUNIS IN WITH A DEGREE IN INTERIOR DESIGN AND CONTINUED HER STUDIES AT THE CENTRE NATIONAL D’ART CÉRAMIQUE-SIDI KACEM JELIZI.
17.03. 18:00 SCREENING OF THE FILM DESERT PHOSFATE BY MOHAMED SLEIMAN LABAT (THE ARTIST WILL BE PRESENT)
DESERT PHOSFATE
THE FILM WEAVES THROUGH THE STORY OF PHOSPHATE, EXPLORING THE MULTI-LAYERED NARRATIONS ABOUT SAND PARTICLES, PLANTS, AND HUMAN DISPLACEMENT. THE FILM EXPLORES WAYS OF TELLING ABOUT REALITIES, METAPHORS, AND POETICS IN THE DESERT. IT HIGHLIGHTS CONNECTIONS BETWEEN COLONIAL PRACTICES, TRACES OF ANTHROPOCENTRIC MINERAL EXTRACTIONS, AND THE LOSS OF INDIGENOUS WAYS OF KNOWING AND TELLING ABOUT THE WORLD.
SLEIMAN LABAT’S FILM CONSISTS OF FIVE CHAPTERS OF DIFFERENT LENGTHS AND POINTS OF VIEW, THEY DO NOT FOLLOW ANY LOGICAL OR CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, BUT THEY SOMEHOW RANDOMLY CONNECT AND RECONNECT AT SOME POINT OR ANOTHER. THIS NONLINEAR METHOD OF NARRATING IS THE ARTIST’S WAY OF DECOLONIZING HIS METHODS OF TELLING THE STORY. THE CHAPTERS INCONSISTENCY RESEMBLES THE SANDSTORM RHYTHMS; IT BUILDS UP AND COLLAPSES SEVERAL TIMES, THEN IT ROARS LOUDLY AGAIN BEFORE IT WINDS DOWN TO A DEATHLY SILENCE AND THEN BACK TO ROARING AGAIN. AND THAT SETS THE TONE FOR THE ENTIRE FILM.
WESTERN SAHARA, 2023, 58’
LANGUAGE: ARABIC WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
MOHAMED SLEIMAN LABAT IS A VISUAL ARTIST, FILMMAKER, AND WRITER, BORN AND RAISED IN THE SAHRAWI REFUGEE CAMPS IN SOUTHWEST ALGERIA. MOHAMED’S WORK EXPLORES THE MULTIFACETED POLITICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND SOCIAL ISSUES THAT AFFECT HIS LOCAL COMMUNITY IN THE HAMADA DESERT AND THE WORLD AT LARGE. HE IS THE FOUNDER AND CURRENT MANAGER OF MOTIF ART STUDIO: A SMALL, COMMUNITY ART SPACE CONSTRUCTED ENTIRELY FROM DISCARDED MATERIALS, A RESPONSE TO THE DESTRUCTIVE FLOODS THAT STRUCK THE CAMPS IN 2015.
THE LAUNCH WEEKEND WILL ALSO HOST THE SEED CONFLUENCE: SIX INTERNATIONAL SEED-SAVING ORGANIZATIONS WILL COME TOGETHER TO COLLECTIVELY INITIATE THE TRANSNATIONAL CRITICAL SEEDS LIBRARY. SOON MORE ABOUT THE SEED LIBRARY AND THE PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS.
IL WEEKEND DEL 15.03. AL 17.03. INAUGUREREMO IL NOSTRO PROGETTO CRITICAL SEEDS OF RESISTANCE.
15.03. 19:30 PERFORMANCE SHAPING NARRATIVES DI AZIZA GORGI E EMILY SARSAM (BROUDOU)
17.03. 18:00 PROIEZIONE DEL FILM DESERT PHOSFATE DI MOHAMED SLEIMAN LABAT
IL WEEKEND DI LANCIO OSPITERÀ ANCHE LA SEED CONFLUENCE: SEI ORGANIZZAZIONI INTERNAZIONALI DI SEED-SAVING SI RIUNIRANNO PER AVVIARE COLLETTIVAMENTE LA TRANSNATIONAL CRITICAL SEED LIBRARY. PRESTO VI RACCONTEREMO DI PIÙ SU QUESTA BIBLIOTECA DEI SEMI E SULLE ORGANIZZAZIONI PARTECIPANTI.
GRAPHIC DESIGN BY JOEL RANDLES @NEVILLE__NEVILLE
WITH THE SUPPORT OF @EUROPEANCULTURALFOUNDATION HTTPS://CULTURALFOUNDATION.EU/
TECHNICAL SPONSORS:
@PALMERI_WINERY @STUDIOTERRAPALERMO
We can’t be anything but edible, Dominique Koch
Opening: 26.10.2023
Exhibition: 27.10.2023 – 2.12.2023, Friday / Saturday. 12:00 – 17:00
With the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and Kultur Kanton Basel-Stadt
«We can’t be anything but edible» is the first solo show in Italy by the Swiss artist Dominique Koch. The Basel and Paris-based artist approaches social and political topics with «multi-species thinking» and connects different forms of knowledge. Within her multimedia and immersive works, she develops videos as a visual medium and combines them with the narrative abilities of sound, as well as with mechanisms of language, text, and objects. Dominique Koch’s solo exhibition in Italy at Aterraterra LAB starts from the 60-minutes video work Sowing the Seeds for the Future (2020). «We can’t be anything but edible» presents the work in a side-specific multimedia video, sound and space installation. The video, sound, and space installation, in which narrative modes are mixed and merged, culminating in one story that can be described as «science-fictional poetry»: A female voice talks about where genetic diversification happens while we see images from a laboratory. The images are taken in the research institute ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas), whose research program and data collection was threatened with destruction due to the ongoing wars. The next scene shows seeds in a dusty landscape, the voice from the off thinks about the time when everything was nourished by water, about the resilience of seeds, about time, place, the elements, and adaptions. A conversation with the natural philosopher Andreas Weber interweaves into these two narratives. He deals with the idea of unconditional reciprocity and paraphrases this with the concept of «edibility»: Existing as human beings means, we get eaten or make ourselves edible. Even though we seem to be isolated bodies — on a material level, we are inseparable from what surrounds us. Our body becomes part of the cycle and can’t be anything but edible.
Sowing the Seeds for the Future
Video installation, sound 60 minutes 2020
Sound design and music by Tobias Koch
Featuring conversations with Andreas Weber, Mahmoud Solh, Mariana Yazbek and Ali Shehadeh
With the support of Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and Kultur Kanton Basel-Stadt
SCREAM AS IF YOUR ORGANS WERE MADE OF GLASS, Diana Lola Posani
Performance, March 2023
A young woman moves slowly backward.
A rumble asks her: “are you prey or predator?”
The performance is called Scream As If Your Organs Were Made of Glass and the extended vocal technique used voluntarily recalls several traditions, from throat singing of the Tuva region to metal, but it was developed independently through the study of inhalation and deep listening to the frequencies of the voice. The performance was followed by a conversation between the artist and Mattia Capelletti, independent writer and curator. In addition, they also talked about the book “Deep Listening – The sound practice of a Composer” by Pauline Oliveros, translated into Italian for the first time by Diana Lola Posani and published by Timeo Publishing.
The event was organized thanks to the collaboration between Aterraterra, DOTE Festival and the Studio Rizoma Foundation.
„How like a leaf I am“, Alexandra Baumgartner
Feb 2023 at Aterraterra Lab, co-curated by Aterraterra and Laura Breitschmid
In her first solo show «How like a leaf I am» in Palermo, swiss based artist Alexandra Baumgartner presents the eponymous long-term project. Interested in the material and immaterial aspects of seeds, Alexandra Baumgartner has been roaming through the gardens of seed keepers and visiting collections of community seed banks to examine the relationships between humans and cultivated plants and following the seed from the soil to the seed bank and from one hand to the other. As a «product» of the collaboration between humans and nature; created through countless human and natural selection processes, growth cycles, interactions and web of relationships, cultivated plants have a special status within the plant world. Seeds constitute the basis of our existence. From infinitely small grains, crops grow to be processed into food, textile fibers, fuel, medicines, and cosmetics. Using photography as a key tool, Alexandra Baumgartner‘s work converges documentary approaches with agricultural research and artistic interpretations. The connection to territories of particular plants and cultural habits are inscribed in the practice of seed keeping, while various actors shape the narratives and claims on seeds. Observing, tasting, selecting, storing, exchanging, and resowing – These gestures have shaped the interactions of humans with plants for thousands of years. The knowledge and practice of generations of farmers and breeders are accumulated in seeds and embedded in countless cycles of coevolution. The continuity of these interactions is put to test in an environment shaped by a growing standardization of farming systems and seed monopolies while there are community-organized initiatives for the development of crop diversity as an act of silent resistance to these seed monopolies.
