A forest in Dis-equilibrium is more susceptible to extreme weather events and disease

This piece by Hannes Egger is designed to be a multi-sensorial experience for individuals. The audience is taken on a physical and mental journey, teetering between myth and reality. A narra- tor’s voice invites those listening to enjoy a series of experiences and to learn about how our relationship with trees, woodland and forests has evolved, from archaic times through to the present day. Magical dimensions, mythological references and historical events all play a part in these alternating images that finally lead up to the scenes of destruction following storm Vaia.

In this double screening, the first video shows us the core drilling process. The figures along the bottom show the temperature changes in the Fiemme Valley, from the first year a tree is born, in 1858, until today. The second video shows the devastation caused by storm Vaia, which destroyed entire forests towards the end of 2018, felling over 13 million trees. This situation led to a number of questions being asked: how should the decomposition of these trees be managed, involving unexpected quantities of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere? How can the livelihood of the local communities be safeguarded? How can we learn from the past, reintroducing a greater variety of species into our forests?

For this German writer, the ancient forests of the central Alps provide the most truthful depiction of the power of vegetation when left to its own devices, showing the productive force of nature. In 1868, Hermann Alex von Berlepsch enthusiastically described this area, where decay and death continuously alternate with rebirth and life, where nature’s storms and avalanches clear space for bustling mushrooms and lichen and the regenerative action of insects and parasites. The work of this German writer - who had seen virgin forests already becoming rare towards the mid-19th century - highlights their protective aspect and poses a number of questions as to how to manage and ensure the quality of these ecosystems.

Reproduction of the original text on Stone Paper, thanks to the collaboration with L’Artistica Savigliano.

These drawings are the fruit of a journey completed by the artist in 2012, along the Californian coast. The purpose of this trip was to visit today’s existing secondary forest areas, which have mainly been transformed into park areas or national forests. Faced with almost apocalyptic scenes, made up of huge trees that had fallen and were partially rotting away, the artist observed how a natural environment free from any human exploitation could regenerate itself. The drawings, based on a series of photographs, depict a section of forest full of organic matter, ready to transform itself. This piece is like a window overlooking the area in question, where the dimensions of the subject and the concept of ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ are of fundamental importance.

Jiří Havel uses photography as a tool to analytically discover every single corner of the forests he enjoys exploring in the north of Bohemia, on the border with Silesia. His interest in the natural world led him to photograph details of trunks, trees and shrubs, moss and other natural and phytomorphic elements, whose aesthetic charm is really brought out in his black and white images. These images show a series of Fomes fomentarius fungi (rotting agents) clinging onto the horizontal trunk of a dead tree. This type of fungi is fruit-bearing and lives for a number of years, shaped like a horse’s hoof (also known as ‘ungulate’); these fungi can grow to a size of up to 40 cm and are part of the large group of wood-rotting fungi.

The reflective sticker forest created by the artist presents an alarming image of an emergency. Starting from the Italian peninsula, Giorgia Severi presents a series of sculptures and frottage work representing the bark of trees in danger of extinction, as well as non-native plant species introduced by humans. Through a global overview, underlining the need to understand that the world is one huge, single living organism, the artist highlights the relationship between anthropic impact and contami- nated landscapes, native species and non-native species, inviting us to reflect on the concepts of interference and biodiversity, with the latter representing an essential factor for well-balanced terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

The aim of this piece, made up of a series of patterns, video images and ceramic sculptures, is to provide an ideal representation of how communications happen in the plant world. Giusy Pirrotta, working with the researcher Nicola La Porta from the Edmund Mach Foundation, deals with the topic of pathogens in the areas affected by storm Vaia. Fungi such as the Heteroba- sidion annosum or the Armillaria mellea spread through underground communication channels (spores), from the fallen trees to the healthy ones, causing the latter to die. Side effects linked to global warming make it easier for them to proliferate, significantly increasing the already disas- trous impact of this single weather event.

This video was shot from a low vantage point and provides slow motion footage of mushrooms growing in the Gotjawal forest, Jeju, Korea, over the course of 2017. The images of the different types of fungi, some of which are pathogenic, are accompanied by 13 narrations about archi- tecture by Korean and foreign architects. Mushrooms play an essential role in the forest’s ecological cycle of creation and decay. On the other hand, they are a living being, with an architectural structure made up of a column and a roof. In today’s historical context, the presence of mushrooms - sometimes in contrast to and at other times working in harmony with the concept of architectural stability - inspires onlookers to imagine a new, constructive relationship between humans and nature.

This piece is designed as a space open to people’s imagination. The installation is made up of heterogeneous elements, held together by an audio narration, inviting visitors to re-imagine their relationship with ‘otherness’ and to leave behind the concept of humans being as individuals who live on earth, instead recognising them as being inhabitants-inhabited within a fragile world. This piece interprets the concepts of intermingling and coexistence, in an attempt to overturn the conventional way of understanding our being in the world. How can we reconfigure our presence in a network of complex ecosystems? What other relation- ships, languages and political scenarios are possible for the future? These are just some of the questions guiding this artist’s research.

With words and thoughts of B. Albert, E. Coccia, P. Descola, V. Despret, S.F. Gilbert, D. Haraway, D. Kopenawa, B. Morizot, A.L. Tsing.

The exhibited pieces of the Companions series are: Albero Madre (fabric, wool, cotton, nylon thread, copal) and Artemide Efesia (fabric, wool, cotton, nylon thread, quartzite).

In 1906, Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of the Abruzzi, conquered the highest peaks of the Lunaes Montes, the vast Ruwenzori massif in the region of the Great African Lakes, on the border between Uganda and today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a member of the expedition, Vittorio Sella was particularly focused on photographing the indigenous people, without neglecting to point his lens toward the dense, plant-based ecosystem that flourished there, bursting with primordial charm Impressive trees, resembling gigantic candelabra, emerge from forests of dense and contorted heather, blending in with an undergrowth full of spongy moss and pendulous lichen.