Natures proposes situations of art making and presenting while wild camping in the Carpathians. The call is for artists that feel like exploring outside the usual art world terrain, at least for a while. We can dislocate our familiar practices from their art environments and let them be affected and maybe reshaped by Natures, or we can pursue new ones. We will decide together, on the way, our nomadic path through the Carpathians, prioritizing our artistic processes, keeping in mind that Natures is an art project not a survivalist exercise.
In art studios we usually optimize the environment so we can focus on our work with no outside interferences. In Natures, the outside interferes – weather, light fluctuations, wild animals, food availability might affect our practices, hopefully for the better. Maybe in order to depart from our established art habits sometimes we need to leave familiar ways and surroundings.
Big inequalities, territorialism, domination, accumulation, exploitation, militarisation, infectious diseases seem to be some of the consequences of abandoning nomadism for the safety and comfort that sedentarism and agriculture were supposed to bring. A paradigm of control and exploitation that brought as in the current mass extinction was deeply established. Natures proposes a return to nomadism, with an aesthetic twist. Nomadism, not in the sense of always being on the move, but in the sense of developing a feel for places, for when to stay and when to go and for physical, conceptual and experiential wandering.
“Nature” in the current techno-materialist climate is made to sound as a romantic cliche, a suspect, uncomfortable term. Natures proposes a move from environment as data to nature as experience and as base of all experiencing. Experiencing nature, the debates on environmental data (CO2 levels, climate changes…) appear absurd – we can directly feel that it’s bad that cities are filled with cars, the air is poisoned, the forests are cut, plants and animals are going extinct. And we can care about nature not because the data tell us to be afraid, but because we love it.
“The forest is the sibling of the Romanian” is a saying here, coming from the habit of hiding in forests in bad times. We might tap again into this habit because for sure there are bad times, not only for art, and not only in Romania. We can even tap into the stories of mountains as majestic, mysterious, perilous beings in which if you retreat, you might emerge changed after a while, if not “reborn”. For a twist, Natures combines these Carpathian perspectives with the Amazonian multinaturalism – there are multiple realities that can be accessed through perspectives activated by our bodies, bodies that are not anatomical but bundles of affects and capacities. So, we're not going back to nature, but back to Natures.
(People in Romania are now very agitated over the unfortunate case of a girl who fell in a precipice and died while attacked by a bear. They ask for a massive decrease or even extermination of bears. People were not similarly agitated when activists were killed by the logging mafia that is destroying the bears’ habitat. The chances of being killed by a car in a city are much bigger than of being killed by a bear in a forest. Romania has the highest percentage of people killed by cars, yet not many people ask for cars reduction, on the contrary they ask for more car infrastructure like highways (cutting forests) and parking lots (destroying green spaces in cities). They irrationally fear going into nature, when rationally they should fear living in car-cities like Bucharest, the city with the highest density of cars in Europe, and one of the most polluted and suffocating.)
Schedule
August 12
Arrival and meeting at Somn Bucharest (choosing the first place to go and discussion).
August 13-26 wild camping.
August 26-27 camping at Somn.
August 27, 18h public presentation and discussion at Somn space.
With: Eliza Trefas, Bogdan Drăgănescu, Smaranda Găbudeanu, Florin Flueras.
"August 19, Paltinul lake
Yesterday a bear was coming our way, we made some noise and it went away. This morning I was relieved when they passed close to the tent and apparently went their way. But they didn't. They stopped quite close actually, eating our food, retrieved from where it was hanging, at the entrance in the forest. I talked to them, politely asking them to leave from our camp and immediately realizing that we are the ones in their territory. I tried to explain the situation, telling them that we're sorry to come uninvited to their place, and asking them if we can stay one more day. They, mother and big cub, although now certainly aware of us, were mostly ignoring us, which we appreciated. They stayed until they finished to unpack, spread, and eat what they liked from our food, basically everything. After what felt like an eternity, they left, making an arc around us, respectfully keeping their distance, and disappearing in the forest, not before the cub climbed a tree to take another good look at us. The encounter was a mix of fear and curiosity, and confusion about what would be the proper way to behave. I felt that somehow everything depends on our behaviors and states. And, although that's what we work with as performance artists, I didn't feel exactly confident performing to this rather demanding audience. Yet, apparently our performance was good enough."
More notes from inside – documentation as text
Notes from inside – documentation as text