ART & NATURE LAB

"Hard work & smiles", watercolour  

Nature’s activists squaring the circle   Photos and text by Francesca Romana Rietti   Ulfborg, Tuesday 4 th of August 2026       We are sitting around a big table in the semi-darkness of the living room of the cultural centre Lystbækgaard, founded by the Danish shepherd Berit Kilerich. Here today the third edition of the itinerant Art-Nature Lab will begin. Outside the Danish sky is blue, full of light and of fluffy and withe clouds constantly moved by a strong wind. Inside we are a bunch of people, still quite sleepy, arrived from Argentina, Denmark, Guatemala, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Serbia and Sweden to learn and exchange techniques and knowledges with masters and artists coming from different fields. Antonella Diana (Scenographer, Visual Artist and leader of Teatret OM’s Scenographic Lab) presenting them found the way to evoke with an image their common ground: “They are all nature’s activists”, she said. “When, walking in a forest, you...

 Art&Nature Lab 3. 08.  4. 08. - Lystbækgaard farm ET4U

Wu Xing  Text and photos by: Francesca Romana Rietti     Ringk ø bing, Sunday, 18 th of August 2024 - Teatret OM   Today the itinerant “Art-Nature Lab” came to an end. After 4 days spent out in nature, we came back to the starting point: the headquarters of Teatret OM, at Buen number 15. In this industrial area, not far from the city centre and the harbour of Ringk ø bing’s Fjord, beside the entrance of the workshop of the theatre, there is an old petrol station. Closed many years ago, it has been abandoned and fenced with an iron grating. In the course of time, some roots cracked the concrete base: trees, brambles and bushes, literally, invaded the space. Uncultivated plants started to grow; a wild vegetation gained the upper hand. Ivy climbed everywhere: on the trunks, on the walls of an elevated brick structure and of a wooden-iron platform, around rusting bins and tubes. As defined by Leo Valentin Lindblom - who yesterday led a w...

   

Photo and text by Francesca Romana Rietti Transform-action   Hoverdal Plantage, Saturday 17 th of August 2024   All the activities of our fourth day of work took place in a forest, Hoverdal Plantage. Situated at about 15 kilometers from Ringkøbing, it has been planted in 1891 to reduce sand drift on the moors between the villages of Hover and Torsted. There you can still experience the inland dunes, in Danish called indsande . Some of us - not me - spent there also the night, sleeping in the wooden shelters. We opened the session with a walking lecture in the forest led by Leo Valentin Lindblom from the Forestry Research Centre in Sweden. Through his gaze and his knowledge, we could look at the nature beyond its apparent uniformity. We could feel the living spirit of a constant transformation. According with this process of mutation we ended the day going deeper. The shamanistic journey led by the Swedish actress Petra Lindblom ...

  Photos and text by Francesca Romana Rietti Seeds and wood   Ringk ø bing, Friday 16 th of August 2024   Our third day of work began visiting the Garden of Wonder (Forundringens Have) of the Vestjyllands Højskole. There we met Kirsten Bjerge, the former kitchen leader of the school, who was introducing us to the principles of the biodynamic agriculture they are following. She told us about more than twenty years of research and collaboration with some German colleagues to prepare the humus with which they fertilize the earth within the timeframe of the planting and sowing calendar. The results were visible in the brilliant colors of the flowers, of the grass, of the plants, of vegetables and of the fruits which inhabit the garden and the cultivated fields. One hilarious moment of the visit was when Kirsten was reading for us the review of one of their products: a milk now used by many gourmet chefs in Denmark and available in some supermarke...

art: Olivera Popov  

  Photos and text by Francesca Romana Rietti Handwork, kærlig hånd, manos a la obra   Ringk ø bing, Thursday 15 th of August 2024   We spent our second day participating to the Bionstallation workshop led by the artists of ET4F (Klavs Weiss, Karen Havskov Jensen and Johanne Randen, Denmark and Norway) and by the Serbian architect Dragana Kojicic. When we arrived at Natur Kraft, they welcomed us around their creation. They were waiting for us to complete it. Theirs was not a common choice: unknown and mostly inexperienced hands were intrusted with the task of finishing their work of art. The one they had been working on, incessantly, for several weeks, heedless of the rain and wind. Yet their smiles today were as shining as the sun of this Danish summer’s day. Under a big green tent, they had prepared a long working table with dishes, bowls, jars, bottles, shingles. In each of them there were examples of the different natural materials we would have then used...