Giorgia Mocilnik
Giorgia Mocilnik
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Catching Biodiversity
+ Sykèus

LandXcape Art Residency - Puglia, IT

Giorgia Mocilnik

Catching
Biodiversity

Sykèus

Temporary mapping of Salento’s biodiversity
along an old path, from the inland to the sea.

It is the beginning of a process
that alone will develop over time.

Discovering Salento's landscapes, studying its agricultural and anthropological history, meeting and listening to its inhabitants and local people, was the first approach to understanding a land strongly infected from the Xylella fastidiosa epidemic. This disease affects the population and economy, as well as increasing the desertification of the region. Despite the advanced stage of this environmental issue, by treading Torre Capo di Lupo’s area for 10 days, smelling its perfumes and observing its landscape, I was able to understand the dazzling potential of this land.
‘Catching Biodiversity’ is a temporary intervention aiming to map the varieties of plants growing spontaneously throughout the territory, by using compost to draw circles all around the species, to point at them and nourish them.


The geometrical shapes develop all along a rediscovered path, cleaned and made accessible again in collaboration with Christina Gruber. They run through olive fields, spontaneous Mission Prickly-Pear cultivations, naturalized and abandoned areas, all the way to the sea. Tracing the biodiversity emphasizes the valid alternatives offered by the pre-existing nature, irrespective of their origins (autochthon, naturalized, invasive).

( . . . )

‘Sykèus’ (from ‘Sykè’: Fig) is a fruit tree which is planted inside an abandoned architecture.
Sprouted from the collaboration between Kerol Montagna and Giorgia Mocilnik, it’s the beginning of a process which will develop by itself over time. It’s an act of claiming back the space and an attempt to recover the equilibrium in the natural relationship between Humans and Nature. The Fig tree has been cultivated in Italy since VII Century B.C.


It appears that is originated from Asia Minor and that it reached the Mediterranean thanks to the Phoenicians. For a long time, it has been, for the Salento region, a source of life, of trading, a characteristic of the landscape and actual “culture”. Thanks to its nutritional properties, it is good taste, it is great adaptive capacities to different climates, its speed in fruiting, its capacity of surviving arid conditions, and thanks to the possibility of conserving its fruits for a long time, it has become a major source of calories in the winter diet of all social classes. Today, it survives more as a domestic use.
The artistic intervention Sykèus is set to accelerate a natural process, already visible in the forsaken buildings of Salento: birds, by eating fruits and then through their feces, drop seeds into the cracks of such constructions, already in a state of disrepair. From the seeds grows the Titan who will from then on characterize those spaces by inhabiting them. In its search for water, it will break the floor, and looking for light, its branches will pass through doors, windows, and roofs. Its growth, pioneering in the search of equilibrium, constitutes an example of strength, an act of survival and a reversal of a landscape completely shaped and transformed by humans.

( . . . )

Materials and techniques:

150 kg of soil, one fig tree

Art Residency:

LandXcape Land Art organized by Bjcem and Regione Puglia

Location:

Parco naturale Otranto-Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy

Catching
Biodiversity
+ Sykèus

LandXcape Art Residency - Puglia, IT

Giorgia Mocilnik

Catching
Biodiversity

Sykèus

Temporary mapping of Salento’s biodiversity
along an old path, from the inland to the sea.

It is the beginning of a process that alone will develop over time.

Discovering Salento's landscapes, studying its agricultural and anthropological history, meeting and listening to its inhabitants and local people, was the first approach to understanding a land strongly infected from the Xylella fastidiosa epidemic. This disease affects the population and economy, as well as increasing the desertification of the region. Despite the advanced stage of this environmental issue, by treading Torre Capo di Lupo’s area for 10 days, smelling its perfumes and observing its landscape, I was able to understand the dazzling potential of this land.
‘Catching Biodiversity’ is a temporary intervention aiming to map the varieties of plants growing spontaneously throughout the territory, by using compost to draw circles all around the species, to point at them and nourish them.


The geometrical shapes develop all along a rediscovered path, cleaned and made accessible again in collaboration with Christina Gruber. They run through olive fields, spontaneous Mission Prickly-Pear cultivations, naturalized and abandoned areas, all the way to the sea. Tracing the biodiversity emphasizes the valid alternatives offered by the pre-existing nature, irrespective of their origins (autochthon, naturalized, invasive).

( . . . )

‘Sykèus’ (from ‘Sykè’: Fig) is a fruit tree which is planted inside an abandoned architecture.
Sprouted from the collaboration between Kerol Montagna and Giorgia Mocilnik, it’s the beginning of a process which will develop by itself over time. It’s an act of claiming back the space and an attempt to recover the equilibrium in the natural relationship between Humans and Nature. The Fig tree has been cultivated in Italy since VII Century B.C.


It appears that is originated from Asia Minor and that it reached the Mediterranean thanks to the Phoenicians. For a long time, it has been, for the Salento region, a source of life, of trading, a characteristic of the landscape and actual “culture”. Thanks to its nutritional properties, it is good taste, it is great adaptive capacities to different climates, its speed in fruiting, its capacity of surviving arid conditions, and thanks to the possibility of conserving its fruits for a long time, it has become a major source of calories in the winter diet of all social classes. Today, it survives more as a domestic use.
The artistic intervention Sykèus is set to accelerate a natural process, already visible in the forsaken buildings of Salento: birds, by eating fruits and then through their feces, drop seeds into the cracks of such constructions, already in a state of disrepair. From the seeds grows the Titan who will from then on characterize those spaces by inhabiting them. In its search for water, it will break the floor, and looking for light, its branches will pass through doors, windows, and roofs. Its growth, pioneering in the search of equilibrium, constitutes an example of strength, an act of survival and a reversal of a landscape completely shaped and transformed by humans.

( . . . )

Giorgia Mocilnik
Giorgia Mocilnik
Giorgia Mocilnik
Giorgia Mocilnik
Giorgia Mocilnik
Giorgia Mocilnik
Giorgia Mocilnik

Materials
and techniques:

soil, fig tree

Art
Residency:

LandXcape Land Art organized by Bjcem and Regione Puglia

Location:

Parco naturale Otranto-Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy