ART & NATURE LAB

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 walking lecture in t

   

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 (Gestalt

  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 supermarkets of the coun

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 working on th

    The right to know    Photos and text by Francesca Romana Rietti   Ulfborg, Wednesday 14 th of August 2024   Today the opening of “ Art-Nature Lab Workshops and Lectures” brought us to a special and unique place where a necessity put into practice became a reason for living, a ‘mission’. We have been guests of the Heritage Cultural Farm founded twenty-five years ago by the Danish shepherd Berit Kilerich who wants to share her 800 sheep and all her knowledge and skeels about them. Here she is taking care of the sheep, landscaping and biodiversity in a holistic way. The land is opened to everyone and there is no fencing. During these last days, the doors of the farm were opened also to Marija Kozomora, a Serbian eco designer and founder of the slow-fashion brand Kozomora. Today we experienced a tour in the land with the sheep led by Berit (1 hour) and a workshop on eco-print and natural dyeing of textiles conducted by Maria (4 hours).

print on textile print on paper  Olivera Popov

  Photos and text by Francesca Romana Rietti   At the crossroads   Ringk ø bing, Tuesday 13 th of August 2024   Just at the entrance of Natur Kraft, one of the five different open-air spaces where the research project “ Art-Nature Lab Workshops and Lectures” will take place, today I enjoyed the luxury to be in one of these strips of land where borders do not exist. There I met a group made by the three artists (Klavs Weiss, Karen Havskov Jensen and Johanne Randen) of the Contemporary Visual Art Projects Association in West Jutland  (ET4U) and Dragana Kojicic, a Serbian architect specialized in sustainable buildings made with natural materials. They gathered together for the first time to create a wooden construction. What I saw and impressed me was a fairytale house with no walls and without a roof. Above us only the low sky of Jutland made by huge white clouds and wind. The panels that support the structure are made by square windows that they started to fill up with dif

"Wu Xing"- Teatret OM  Metal-Earth, actor's props   From left to right: metal balls, clay dish, clay horse Fire Thinking of the elements in connection with watercolours I went from Water + Colour (Pigment = Earth/Metal) to trying to find natural materials that would give me their colour.  I found a vibrantly coloured unintentional  "sculpture" (old barbecue left outside to rust)  and some coal left in it.  and this was the result of my  experiment:  Olivera Popov

Bioinstallation, ET4U & D. Kojičić

                                                                Broogarden, A water meadow shaded by the birch trees Text and photo by: Francesca Romana Rietti   Build and Break Break and Build   Ringk ø bing, Friday, 9 th of August 2024 - Teatret Om, working room Itsi Bitsi   My first working day is the third one of rehearsals for the site-specific performance Wu Xing , inspired by the interaction of the five agents of Chinese Taoist culture: water, metal, earth, fire and wood. It will be presented in five different open-air places - located around the area of the Ringk ø bing’s fjord - from the 14 th until the 18 th of August - in the frame of the research project “ Art-Nature Lab Workshops and Lectures” curated by Antonella Diana, visual artist, scenographer and co-founder in 1989 with the actress and director Sandra Pasini of Teatret Om. Four of the five actresses, Hisako Miura (Japan), Sandra Pasini (Italy/Denmark), Jori Snell (Denmark/Neth

  Actors rehearsing