SOAP Art and Publishing

This text is written as a mix of a diary and a work log of the continued documentation of Pietro Ferri's house in Filignano which we began in 2019. The works form part of the visual Archaeological anthropology we are making of the planetary crisis.

The text refers to things we have done previously in the project as well as things that happen between us, including everyday events and the development of the work. It's a test to see what happens when we use a simultaneous narration of the life that goes on alongside the work, rather than using a model that separates the project from the surrounding conditions. The text is written and edited during the summer and autumn of 2023 when we had yet another a residency in Italy, which was carried out with the support of Cultural Documents and Casa Pleadi. The diary starts when Nina leaves the UK in May.

Wed the 24th of May. Traveling by train towards Sweden, where she will spread her dad’s ashes and then pick up Anna and her daughters Selma and Marie to continue to Italy, Sant'Agapito, and Filignano.On the way, Nina stops to visit an old friend who lives in Paris. In her friend's backyard, there is a very large productive hazelnut tree which shades nearly ⅓ of the garden. Nina decided to take three baby hazelnuts from this tree to plant in the different European places where the Breadboy project is carried out. She also takes a bunch of nuts to seed In case any of the little tree seedlings don't survive the train journeys across Europe. It is an act of love for the friend in question who soon is leaving Europe to return to his birthplace in Guadeloupe.

Mama Hazel Felix Cazeres. John Bacos ashes Flanked with Chives

Thursday the 15 of June Itaka Institute Zürich. At the residency in  Bergkvara Sweden last year we started experimenting with filtering nutrients out of water with Biochar that we had made from reeds. You can see the results here, it was not a great success. Contrary to what we had read in general literature about biochar’s filtering capacity, the water analysis we made proved that while it had absorbed a lot of nitrates it had also released a large amount of phosphorus. This is one of the runoff nutrients that we hoped it would the biochar would absorb. The initial test had come back just as our stay at Bergkvara came to an end but we were able to make another trial with help from the local artist Mats Rundberg

With Mats’ help we design a new experiment that offers more controlled circumstances than we had in the previous test by putting the water sample through a slowed-down filtering process (as demonstrated below). This experiment highlighted the same problem as the earlier one did and showed a great increase in phosphor. 

The information we had gathered before the experiments had not prepared us for the failure so we decided to get to the bottom of why by visiting the biochar research center Ithaka Institute at Agroscope (the Swiss Centre of Excellence for Agricultural Research) in Zurich.
We were welcomed by Dr. Dilani Rathnayake, postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Nikolas Hagemann Scientific director,  and Karolin Seiferth Intern. It was a little funny and awkward when we tried to formulate our question because our frameworks and methodologies are so different. We had trouble describing what we wanted to know but the scientists were very accommodating and patiently listened to our narrative about our hopes, failure, and our sources to help us develop the questions we had so they made sense.  It boiled down to stability. At Ithaka, they are mainly testing ways to standardize the process of pyrolysing different materials to develop biochar in ways that are stable enough for industrial use. In regards to why our experiment with filtering failed they could not give us a conclusive answer because there were too many unknown variables. At Ithaka, they use a closed circuit biochar kiln which pyrolys on temperatures of up to 1000 degrees as opposed to the open cap Kon Tiki kiln that we had used which reaches only between 300 and 500 degrees. This is one reason the biochar made in a KonTiki can not be as stable as the char made in the controlled temperature of the closed circuit kiln at the institute. Another reason could be the feedstock which in the case of Ithaka is always controlled and tested beforehand, while the feedstock we used was mixed wood and a lot of reeds that had been cut from the baltic sea and then dried on a field for a few years. 

The takeaway from the visit was the following: Making biochar in a Kontiki is fine for small-scale or medium-sized gardening and growing projects. It does sequester the carbon in the feedstock and it can be a good aggregate for creating a healthy microbe-rich soil. It is also an effective pedagogical tool for understanding the carbon cycle. However, using this kind of biochar for anything else is likely to be unsuccessful as it was in the case of our filtering experiment. It was informative and encouraging to learn a bit more.

Friday the 16th of june we visited a temporary gallery set up by an organisation called AIA (Awareness in Art) and the show Energy Give away at the Humuspunk Library curated by Regenerative Energy Communities. This exhibition was a super playful homage to earth healing, problem solving, activism, multispecies thinking and microbe/fungal growth and we loved it. 

Saturday 17/6 Arrival in Sant'Agapito: After travelling on trains from Zurich, with changes in Lugano and Milan, and Rome central we arrived at Fiumicino airport where we had booked a rental car. Finally we were on the last leg of the journey. Hungry, tired we drove east towards Sant’Agapito, Casa Pleadi, and Aga, Lisa, and Maya who developed and run Casa Pleadi.

Lisa wasn't there when we arrived as she was away for work in the Balkan but Maya and Agapito made us welcome and fed us well as usual. It was good to see the show we have had hanging there since last year and on which we are building this year and conclude that we thought we had made the correct decision on what images to add.  

Maya had made us this sculpture and read a letter in English as a welcome gift.  This time we were given a house in lower Sant’Agapito as opposed to a place in the historic center on the top of the hill where we lived last time. It was a good house with an upstairs and downstairs and 4 cats and a dog.

Monday the 19th of June In the late afternoon we went to Maya’s summer campus by a river Volturno under the high-flying bridges that cut through the landscape like huge futuristic modernist sculptures and make one expect an entry to a huge city rather than a small sleepy country town like Isernia.  The camp is set in this location to create a sense of ownership of the landscape and constructions that make up the children’s landscapes. 

Thursday the 22 of June

Going back to Filignano to begin working. Forgot the key. Had to go back but could not find it. Climbed into the house. Test photographed with the Fujicamera  and the mobile phones. We had left notes to ourselves on the floor to make sure we knew what was photographed and what still was unphotographed. Organised a new key and then went back home. We never managed to start photographing but we agreed we would make taxonomy images and more Adam's creation images this time as well as to trying some sculptural close-ups to get another angle of the house. We talked about Stephen Shore’s and Egelstone’s photography, and took some test images on our cellphones to see if they could work but we also have an irritation brewing and growing between us.

The news is overflowing with information about the submarine that went missing as it dived to see the Titanic. By the time we speak about it, the 5 or so people who have paid up to one million dollars to take part in the mission are considered lost as the air supply will have run out. The whole world is engaged and ships from several nations are coming to the rescue mission. Individually this is of course a tragic catastrophe for those involved but it's very hard not to compare the reporting, response, and lax rescue efforts to save the possibly 700 migrants on an overfilled fishing boat that went down close to Greece just 3 days before the submarine left shore. There are suspicions that it was a matter of a so-called pushback which is when the Coast Guard pushes ships outside their territorial waters to avoid having to take responsibility for the people onboard. While it’s not productive we find it difficult not to become bitter at the attention the 5 dead hobby divers looking for thrills get as opposed to the anonymous migrants.  

Friday the 23th of June. Took the 2 first Taxonomies. Some thoughts: Firstly we are running low on distinct smaller objects and secondly the objects are disintegrating. It is difficult to make the images. We have decided to only make 6 images and not try to make more than 2 a day. They are too laborious to make more. We know this from prior experience. The labour can be meditative but the arguments are inflicting. We bicker and get very irritated with each other during the process.

Saturday the 24 of June. We are away working in Filignano when a freak storm with rain, hail and thunder hits Sant’ Agapito. Selma and Marie were down by the river in the gorge beside the village. They had to hide under a bridge during the worst of it because the paths up became veritable waterfalls. Agapito saved them and gave them dry clothes. After they go to see Maya doing a judo show while we clean Casa Pledi. It feels good to give something so practical in return for the hospitality they show us. The act also brings us closer to the lab where they develop and redevelop their cooking techniques to meet the challenges of food and energy shortages, and health problems caused by an uncontrollable postcapitalist economy. Their reintroduction of abandoned grains and tweaking of original foods, and preserving techniques narrows the difference between art and life and contextualises the anthropology we are making.  

During the storm Marie’s mobile became wet and stopped working.  It was placed in rice and there was some sincere sorrow.

Sunday the 25 of June. The irritation continues while we are building the image installations. Normally we both operate on a kind of joy-of-making-energy and recognise the usefulness of making them at least on completion but now it's not fun at all. There is satisfaction once we hit the image and decide we succeeded but the irritation returns the minute we start building the next image. We try different methods to avoid the conflict but are not hugely successful. 

Secretly Nina considers giving up because we don't feel the joy. 

The disintegration of much of the material we use is increasing which makes it harder to manage. We have already begun to use material such as rust, dust and other things in a state of deterioration. Dead they may be, but dust, rust and insect corpses have their own agenda. We think about how more of this will come to surface in the years to come. Maybe if we are able to continue as long as we wish ( we imagine 10, 20 more years) there will be a time when material in this state will dominate the images. 

Monday the 26 of June. At Cafe Borgo in Filignano:  a man is whistling a song that we recognise as a 60s or early 70s Swedish hit Lyckliga Gatan (The Happy Street). We start singing along with the Swedish text and that leads us to start speaking with the singing man who shows us a concert video where Adriano Celentano sings the original Il Ragazzo della via Gluck. The person is Eugino who is the caretaker of the Filignano museum/archives which he wants to show us. 

Tuesday the 27 of June. Went to visit Fausto, one of the people behind the residency program Vis à Vis, in Limosano. On the way there we listened to a podcast about Leonard Cohen by the Swedish podcasters Alex and Sigge. The podcast is a great homage to the importance a particular artist can have for an individual. It is, however, interspersed with ethically questionable advertisements for various businesses (Foodora and Klarna) busting yield high dividends to their shareholders but offer absolutely abysmal conditions and pay to their workers by different methods like for example engaging in Union Busting. It gets us to talk about the way shareholding companies suck money out of our communities and how implicated arts and culture can be. Later this will also make us talk about the film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by : Laura Poitras about the campaign to stop Museums and Arts institutions from accepting donations from the Sackler family who are responsible for the opiate epidemic through their development and ruthless sale of Oxytocin. The film is centered around Nan Goldin’s story and an activist group around her as they stage demonstrations, die-ins and other activities to shame the institutions and inform people about the dirty money. The campaign succeeded to get major museums to stop working with Sacklers.  We arrive. Fausto made gnocchi in tomato sauce and chocolate cake and we continued talking about politics. Fausto said: ”To do nothing is the biggest revolution”. We didn't really agree. On the way home we listened to one of Marie’s podcasts ”I just want to be cool”, because we always urge her to take part in our conversations and podcasts. 

Maries' phone is still out of order. 

Wednesday the 28 of June. We make the last taxonomy. The irritation continues. It probably stems from the fact that when we are involved in building the work we have a hard time hearing what we say to each other as well as recognising that this is the case. Nina also has an annoying but involuntary tendency of saying half sentences as if Anna could hear the thoughts that preceded what came out of her mouth. But also and importantly, it's physically exhausting to build the images. It is like the material resists –– as if it knows it will be put aside not to be used again when we are done.

Thursday the 29 of June. We begin photographing some new images for the series Adam’s Creation. We do tests with the Fuji but use Hasselblad to ensure consistency with the ones we made the first time we were here. Working in the house with all this stuff has made us aware of the discussions around the ecology of things as discussed in Jane Bennett book Vibrant matter. This book experiments with and advocates the thought that everything is alive and in process and that our bodies interconnect with all things around us and that recognizing this could have radical implications for our engagement with the world. To honor matter on its own merits and habitat rather than what it produces can be a a useful way to rethink things like economic growth and exploitative extraction.

Sunday the 2nd of July. Begin photographing the series with Marie in Pietro’s clothes. This series document both her growth but also and the fact that last year when we photographed her, they were Tom (we have titled that year’s portrait accordingly) and went under the pronoun he. Tom is now Marie again.

She is so much more aware of her look this time and although she photographs so well (model-like) we will repeat the session to see if we can get the photo with a little more vulnerability. We may also get used to this one but her awareness of how her image reflects is a little too strongly here.

After the shot we lunched in Cerasuolo and continued to  Lago di Castel San Vincenzo. Another long winding achingly beautiful mountain road. We asked Aga, Lisa and Maya to come along. Met them at the camping, played games and had Pizza.

Monday the 3rd of July. We had planned to photograph growers before we came. It made sense to begin with Maria and Maurizio's garden thrbecause they own the house we work in. They grow, amongst other things, potato, tomato, beans, artichoke, asparagus, onion, plums, apples, hazelnuts, an infinite amount of flowers, and a whole barrel full of Basil. It turns out that many of their garden flowers are originally wild and picked in the mountains.  While we photograph we won't think of this but later, writing this report up it dawns on us that they may be the kind of citizen experts/scientists that we would like to work with if we pursue an idea we have had about making a flora of the plants surrounding a walkway between a couple of villages in the region.

11.00 Meeting with Eguino Verrecchia at the museum in Filignano. Sergio Verrecchia helps  to translate. Eguino have made a sculpture modelled from Robert Capa's photograph ”the fallen soldier” made from the remains of a mine. They have a large archive particularly from WW2 and the violent battles that took place here but also family photos and municipal developments of infrastructure.

We could not stay long because we were going to meet Agapito at home to go to the farm Fattoria Griott to be interviewed by a journalist from a local tv channel. The journalist did not speak English so Agapito translated and in the end the way the journalist edited the piece was quite funny. In most images with us we were petting the kittens and saying how wonderful Molise is etc. And it's true, Molise is wonderful and we were quite occupied with the kittens. 

Fattoria Griot is an organic farm that grows and sells on regional farmer’s markets and local resturants. It was started to provide proper paid work and social opportunities to sub saharan migrants in Molise who often otherwise end up in sweatshops in the periphery of urban centres.  Fabrizio Russo who started the farm and also is the front man for the band Riserva Moak is alone on the farm right now. He seemed tired and said he needs a new partner to care for the farm when he is out touring with the band. The situation has been made more difficult with the very unseasonal rains that hit Italy in May this year (2023) so at the moment he only has money to hire one person and that's not enough to both work the soil and the markets. We wonder if the no dig method with the added benefit of making more humus and holding water better would make it easier to cope with the instability in the climate. When we discussed it later with Lisa she mentioned that her grandmother had said there was too little compost/humus material in the soil and that this made it heavy. No dig methods in farming are soaring and perhaps it could be a solution for Fattoria Griot.  

In the evening we met  Catarina Palombo who works with forest certification at the organisation ETICAE. The organisation also collaborates with Rewilding Europe in various projects that provide education for kids or information to familiarise and convince the general population of the importance of protecting wildlife in the region. We agreed to try to find something to work on together. 

Tuesday the 4th of July. We went back to Filignano and photographed Marie again. This time we succeeded which was lucky as it was our last day here for this time. Her awkwardness and the vulnerability in her expression is better captured. 

Afterwards Selma and Marie went to the pool and we cleaned up the house. At night we went to an outside Yoga lesson in one of the concrete brutalist neighbourhoods from the 70s which Paulo Passolini hated with such gusto.  

Wednesday th 5 of July. We walked from lower to upper Sant’Agapito to make a first try on the flora idea. We photograph approximately 30 different species with the mobile camera but will only include a few of them here. We think it can work if we rephotograph with a proper camera. It needs some tweaking of course. We may try to include the roots. We may also try to see what kind of pigment we can extract… if some of it is light sensitive we can maybe use it for solar panels and/or prints. 

Later we went to Rosanna Rossi (whom we began talking with last year) who lives in Cerasuolo and works with Dominio Collettivo di Cerasuo.

A little background: The village Cerasuolo has been community-owned, since the mid-1800s when the land was gifted to the villagers by Duke Pasquale Marotta on the condition that they build a church in honor when he died. From then and perhaps up until the 70s or even a little later it was run by a board that was accountable to the villagers and divided income from the land equally. In the following years, which saw a lot of villagers leaving, the land became less important to the economy and the people who were on the boards began treating the land as if it was their own. No one seems to have minded but a new generation is growing who may want to stay in their birthplace and who are becoming aware that the village and land constitute a possibility to have an income. The situation for young people in the region is increasingly dire as the possibilities to get a job locally, regionally, or even nationally are diminutive. Since we last met, Rosanna and her husband have together with some others taken over the board to change this and make the property generate income for the whole village. It has not been free of conflict to make these changes but they have gotten to the point where they now have taken over the management of the land and begun the work of seeking ways to make it sustainably productive for the people living in the village.

We discuss possible ways to work together. Rosanna suggests we meet and photograph the female shepard and we agree that Nina can do that as she is coming back in a few weeks to hang an exhibition at the local bar Borgo. We are also interested in how the forest is being used which may be something we can develop together with Catarina Palombo. 

Thursday the 6 of July. Nina finds it difficult to separate from the stuff we photograph because she thinks we could use it again but Anna insists we make sure to throw away stuff that is beyond recovery so today we deposited recycling from Pietro's house. When this was done we helped Marie and Selma to film the script they have been writing during the trip. The film is called Ragazza Gato. After this we managed, with the help of Aga who is a wizard on everything practical, to rehang the new larger Adam’s Creation images and in the evening we had an informal opening at Casa.

Friday the 7 of July. Anna, Marie and Selma leave Sant’Agapito at 8 AM to return the car in Rome and then head north on the train. Nina will go to Greece in a few days and then return to hang the show at  Borgo. 

Nina stays in St Agapito using the downtime to clean up the house and go through the new shoots we agreed she would take on the way back. The date for the Filignano exhibition is set for the 30th of July.  Deirdre, who was supposed to come for this exhibition will not make it but will be in Filignano for a week while Nina is away to prepare, getting help, hanging, inviting speakers, exhibition text, poster and marketing.

Tuesday the 11 of July. Nina leaves for Greece where she will be staying until the 27th of July and experiment with her father’s collection of stationary objects.  

11/8-27/8 Greece is hit by a heatwave, the temperatures are topping at 43 degrees in the Athens area. Several wildfires are raging around the country, one very devastating only 10k down the road from Nina's father's house. The work that we had planned Nina would do with her dad’s stationary collection was canceled because we had agreed that it would be shot in the garden. The only time it's possible to be outside during the day is early in the morning and early evening when the light is too low. The sound of the helicopters carrying water to control the fires accompanies our days and Nina and her sister follow the news to make sure they do not reach the place they live unbeknownst to them. Nina buys fittings to hang the work as Deirdre lets her know it can be difficult to find in Molise.

Thursday the 27 of July Nina returns to Naples. Apapito picks her up in Isernia, where they also pick up the work that is going to the Filignano exhibition, to drive her to Filignano and Cultural Documents house where she is staying until she has opened the show at Cafe Borgo. 

Friday the 28 of July. The space where the exhibition is to be hung is cluttered with Bar Borgo things and Adura the owner does not want her to take down anything from the walls. At this point, Nina feels intimidated by this double use of the space but as the images go up on the walls the clutter seems less intrusive. The work seems to come alive and interact with the industrial or practical objects that belong to the daily running of the bar

Sunday the 30th of July. Opening. We take it as an opportunity to present the next phase of the project together with Rosanna. The plan to work with the Cerasuolo Collective is a perfect possibility to link the historical content of the work and the contemporary questions of living within the project. 

Tuesday the 8th of August. Nina leaves on train for Paris.