NATURE, ART & HABITAT RESIDENCY
VAL TALEGGIO, BERGAMO, ITALY
VAL TALEGGIO _ Where We Are _ Associazione Amici Artista Franco Normanni _ Ecomuseum Val Taleggio
NAHR _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
NAHR Vision and Mission NAH_Workshop Domains Programs Scientific and Founder Commitees Ambassadors NAHR California Partners
FELLOWS WORK _ _ _ _ _ _
Our first year The Woods Rock and Stones: Material Culture and Cultures of Making Water: Vital Flux, Energy in Transformation Grasses and Pastures: Imagining a Regenerative Economy of Cheese Animals: Interdependence Between Species
NAHR
VAL TALEGGIO - ITALY Val Brembana
PIZZINO
SOTTOCHIESA VEDESETA OLDA
LECCO
PEGHERA
COMO
San Giovanni Bianco
San Pellegrino Terme Zogno
BERGAMO Dalmine MXP
A4
BGY
A4
Brescia Venezia
MILANO
LIN
Torino
www.nahr.it
VAL TALEGGIO Val Taleggio is an Alpine valley in the Italian region of Lombardy, situated between the provinces of Bergamo and Lecco. Geographically Val Taleggio comprises of three municipalities: Taleggio(divided in Sottochiesa, Peghera, Olda, Pizzino), Vedeseta and Morterone. Fraggio Church (1300) the oldest with the typical roof in piode. Enna's river has gouged out a 3 km gorge known as the Orrido della Val Taleggio.
SOTTOCHIESA & SOGGIORNO MAZZOLENI The residency, set in the bucolic Val Taleggio in Northern Italy, offers to the residents a lively space to productively interact. Built in 1912, the Soggiorno situated in the heart of the village, in addition to the private apartments for hosting the fellows, has several communal spaces: gardens, food orchard with fresh veggies, and a small indoor studio space for the rainy days.
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WHAT'S NEAR MILANO Fashion & Design Capital, land of Leonardo da Vinci, the first biomimetic. Duomo (1932). Triennale Design Museum, 1923. Fondazione Prada (1993).
BERGAMO The Walled upper town is a medieval city surrounded by ramparts: a magical place well worth visiting. The most known and visited part is Piazza Vecchia with Palazzo della Ragione.
SAN PELLEGRINO TERME Home of the world renown mineral water, QC Terme and of italian Liberty architeture: Grand Hotel (1905) and Casinò (1904-1906).
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Associazione Amici Artista FRANCO NORMANNI The Artist, native of Val Brembana, lived in Bergamo. The association is the main supporter of NAHR and it is rapresented by the Artist' house, in Bergamo. Its walled medioeval garden inspired Normanni's work.
www.franconormanni.com
Civilization of Taleggio, Strachitunt and Rural Huts
Ecomuseo Val Taleggio recognized in 2008 by the Region Lombardy - in network with 43 others - is a cultural institution dedicated to education, discussion and sharing of best practices to enhance the local heritage and local development for the knowledge of the territory: visitors centers; restoration of historical buildings, museums, identification of thematic routes promote new models of receptivity and community involvement through cultural, social and economic actions. The Ecomuseum is a territotory, a population, a heritage. It is diffuse in the area of Val Taleggio: Sottochiesa is the Info Point and the Ecomuseum office, Vedeseta is the Documentation Centre and Peghera is the ex-school of the village, location of Stagionati, the last stage of the multimedia journey which tells the production of the cheese in Val Taleggio.
www.ecomuseovaltaleggio.it
NAHR
NATURE, ART & HABITAT Main disciplines Art Practices Architecture Design Anthropology Digital Humanities Biology Natural Sciences Ecology Biomimicry Ethno-botany Economics Gastronomy Sustainability Studies Technology Sciences Visual Arts Liberal Studies
NAHR is an ECO-Laboratory of multidisciplinary practice focused on unveiling the intimate links amongst all living organisms, with the goal of restoring a resilient earth in which humans and nature coexist. NAHR nurtures creative responses to ecological observations through its residencies in northern Italy and southern California, creating an international community of respondents. This summer residency aims to unfold and display a sensitive type of culture that relates to nature as a source of inspiration and a measure of available resources. The ultimate goal is to unveil intimate links with all living organisms and to develop a more resilient and vital coexistence - in which humans would not be conceived as separate from, but part of, nature. NAHR was by design a gathering place for discussion and for the support of creative projects that encourage a deeper awareness of how humans can engage responsibly in the future of the planet. NAHR is PARTICIPATION and its strength is its INCLUSIVITY.
www.nahr.it
REGENERATIVE ECONOMY
BIO-INSPIRED DEFIGN AND ARCHITECTURE
NAHR BODY PERFORMING NATURE
DESIGNED FUTURES, TECHNOLOGY & NEW MEDIA
DOMAINS NAHR is particularly invested in work that expresses in new and novel ways the resiliency of nature across the following four domains:
REGENERATIVE ECONOMY The study of local culture and production/exchange relations that extend to observations on local ecosystems in order to generate economic models based on concepts of restoration, regeneration and circularity. BIO-INSPIRED DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE . The development and/or creation of projects and artifacts inspired by form, functions and processes found in the nature of the Valley . DESIGNED FUTURES, TECHNOLOGY & NEW MEDIA The use of emerging technology tools/engines such as virtual and augmented reality, 3D printing, scanning, artificial intelligence, sensor-based systems, robotics, and simulations to investigate the shifting boundary between technology and nature, infrastructure and ecosystems. BODY PERFORMING NATURE Artwork production and critical articulate our relationship to nature, landscape, sustainability and ecology though creative movement of the human body.
www.nahr.it
NAHW
WORKSHOP Every year NAHR embarces of a variety of in-person and visual workshops. The workshops are conceived as a collaborative experience in which learning sessions are supplemented by round table discussions involving direct application of knowledge paired with interdisciplinary brainstorming. All activities are in English, and, when in Italian, with a simultaneous translation.
The workshops emphasize the continuum natureculture by integrating human and technological culture into nature’s web, spawned by a multidisciplinary and practical approach. The participants will learn to: 1. Understand how nature can be both an integrant part of human habitat, and a source of inspiration for the creative process 2. Translate biological phenomenon into relevant and applicable design principles 3. Learn about bio-inspired design methodology and biophilia as tool to enhance sustainable life conditions. 4. Discuss Circular Economy strategies and the scalability of small communities, dynamic to more complex, and interdependent societies for sustainable and resilient living. 5. Create and enrich collaboration among people from different backgrounds that supports the coupling of human-nature interaction and a rich eco-systemic coexistence.
www.nahr.it
2022 Soil The Critical Zone
2021 Animals: Interdependence Between Species
2017 Rock & Stone Material Culture and Cultures of Making
2016 The Woods
PROGRAMS
2019 Grasses and Pastures Imagining a Regenerative Economy of Cheese
2015 Our first year
2018 Water Vital Flux, Energy in Transformation
FOUNDING COMMITTEES Nature, Art and Habitat Residency (NAHR) was founded in 2015 by Associazione Amici Artista Franco Normanni, a nonptofit association based in Bergamo, Italy. In 2016 NAHR has become a nonprofit association as well.
The goals and objectives of NAHR global community are to embrace new, active members, expand the reach of the programming and activities, bring new fellows to the residencies, and to capture the NAHR projects in books and publications.
Ilaria Mazzoleni NAHR founder Architect, author, educator and founder of IM Studio Milano/Los Angeles
Anna Santi NAHR curator Graduated in Architecture at Istituto Universitario di Venezia
Alec (Alexandru) Balansecu Anthropologist, writer and curator
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Gabi Scardi NAHR President Art Critic, Curator and Writer Milano, Italy
Adrian Paci Artist Tirana, Albania Bergamo, Italy
Deborah Weintraub
Maristella Casciato
Architect Los Angeles, CA USA
Architectural Historian Roma, IT Los Angeles, CA USA
Paolo Belloni
Susanna Ravelli
Architect Bergamo, Italy
Culture Manager Milano, Italy
Fulvia Mendini Artist Milano, Italy
Alessandro Mendini NAHR Founding Chairman_In Memoriam Artist and Architect, Milano, Italy
AMBASSADORS
Sofia Della Pace Project Manager Milano, Italy Noah Mercer Software Architect Los Angeles, CA USA
Jose Herrasti Architect Los Angeles, CA USA Mexico City, Mexico
Sara Invernizzi Doctoress in Modern Literature Bergamo, Italy Melissa Blanco Morelli Lecturer in Dance London, UK
Richard Molina Architect Los Angeles, CA USA
Dan Disney Poet and Professor, Seoul, South Korea
Asli Suner Architect, Educator Istambul, Turkey
Lucinda Coleman Choreographer, Dancer, Writer Perth, Australia Katie de Bari Performer, Writer, Urban Agricolture Educator Orlando, FL USA
Santa Ynez Santa Barbara
Los Angeles
SANTA YNEZ - USA (CA) The setting for the residency, Refugio Road Ranch or r3, is a ten-acre property used for boarding retired horses, set in a region known for wine cultivation and olive groves . The space for the Fellow is a refurbished farm structure that offers approximately 1,750 square feet of habitation, work, and exhibition space . It is an airy and majestic farm shed structure, ideal for choreographic projects, projection installations, sculpture or other visions that require ample space . The Santa Ynez Valley is north of Santa .Barbara in an inland valley, with rolling The Santa Ynez Mountains are on the south, the San Rafael Mountains on the north, with the Santa Ynez River running from east to west .
www.nahr.it
NAHR
FELLOWS 2021
CAMILLA ALBERTI Unbinding Creatures Da Sopra a Sottochiesa
FRANCESCO MALUTA Walking with care
ORSO CZERNY Walking divination
MERI GORNI Nothing is as Before
VERA PRAVDA TÉ TÉ SE MÉ Visual Reflections
XINNING LIU A Theatre in Taleggio
MARTA ROMANI & KARL LOGGE Roccolo, rocca, rukkô: a weird entanglement
Unbinding Creatures: Da Sopra a Sottochiesa The sculpture was created in Val Taleggio, through the combination of materials and objects found in Fraggio, Vedeseta, Capo Foppa, Pizzino, Grasso and the hamlet of Sottochiesa. The work belongs to a research that reflects on the potential of the imaginary of monsters. Hybrid and metamorphic figures, key subjects for founding new contemporary mythologies. The sculpture is composed of abandoned objects, waste material, vegetation and animal fragments. Materials without an "owner" who regulates their identity and for this reason they become microhabitats in which a plurality of species coexist.
Camilla Alberti As a visual artist, she works on the ways in which the world is constantly constructed and inhabited, focusing on the relationships between the different living species and the space that surrounds them. She obtained a MA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at NABA in Milan.
Nothing is as Before The installation that I produced during my residency is composed of drawings, objects and an artist's book. During the lockdown I was fascinated and struck by the animals coming out of the woods, feeling safe from our absence, crossing the deserted paved streets of the city. And therefore, in my drawings I wanted to record this moment in which a change occurs: the animals taking possession of their territory and our absence. The experience of the pandemic made us understand the presumption with which we felt and believed we were at the center of the universe system. We have perhaps understood how little is enough to break the balance of coexistence and interdependence between species. What if all this carelessness led to the disappearance of mankind?
Meri Gorni Is an artist based in Milano, Italy, that uses different expressive languages from writing to photography, including drawing, performance and video. She has written numerous books and exhibited both of them internationally in galleries and museums.
TÉ TÉ SE MÉ Visual Reflections "Té té se mé " means "you are me" in the Bergamasque dialect of Sottochiesa, in Taleggio Valley. It is a relational project aimed at increasing the tangibility of the concept of interdependence between species. Reflections, notes, combinations arise from the observation of the animals present in the area and from listening to the people met during the residency. 'You are me' is the phrase of mirroring, of reflection on the other, applicable to both the human and the ‘other-from-human’. The languages and dialects in which the phrase is repeated were collected in the field.
Vera Pravda Is an independent relational visual artist, white, mum, nomadic subject, European citizen, Italian and Polish, based in Milan and Warsaw. Vera Pravda confronts aspects of human impact on environment and on society, crystallizing visual reflections through the means of decontextualisation and appropriation of languages.
A Theatre in Taleggio I have produced an animated short film exploring how humans relate to animals, depicting a surreal interaction between a man and a cow. I was prompted to investigate this idea because our inherent animality is neglected in our daily lives. I wanted to show humans as primitive creatures; who celebrate, fight and love. Do we envy animals in their freedom to live according to their nature? When we eat meat and drink milk, have the animals already become part of us? Finally, the audience of my show are the inhabitants of Val Taleggio, who are observing us all the time; the cows, sheeps, birds.
Xinning Liu Is an animator, originally from China, currently living in the UK. She has completed an MA in Film Studies at Goldsmiths, UoL. She has several years of experience working as an animator and director, during which time she has collaborated with TATE, Barbican, and NAHR.
Roccolo, Rocca, Rukkô: a Weird Entanglement Each morning at dawn we tune into the birdsong outside our window. This strange entanglement operates as an alchemical exploration of the territory to tell a new story. Activated by ancestral threads that become woven with the polyphonic tapestry of the Taleggio Valley, this guides a four-fold investigation of inter-species ecologies linked to the Roccoli. Through working with repetitive gestures, gathered materials, historical clues and multiple encounters we have created a speculative narrative that activates these impressions through performative research-interventions and totemic artefacts that encourages a responsibility of custodianship of interdependent life-worlds.
Marta Romani and Karl Logge They create hybrid projects that combine critical contemporary art practices with the repetitive gestures and ancient techniques of weaving. Influenced by places, cycles and seasons, and closely connected to nature, their works take the form of nomadic spaces, children's workshops, site-specific tapestries, community engagement, live-art events and immersive installations.
Walking with Care Before arriving, I thought it was necessary to find solutions so that these valleys could find a sense and a balance in terms of liveability and sustainability, but listening, observing and getting to know them, I discovered that all that is needed already exists. And so all that remains is to preserve, protect and enhance their essence by taking care of it. The title of the project takes its clue from the writing placed on the packaging of fragile objects "Handle with care" because Taleggio Valley is a fragile place formed by nature, men, animals, and history. "Walk with care" has a bottom up approach, it is an invitation to notice the small things that seem trivial and obvious to us, but that in certain contexts constitute a certain beauty.
Francesco Maluta Maluta’s fabulous bestiary throws us with irony in the tragedy of childhood, between the epic majesty of indomitable wild beasts and the reassuring and yet goofing domesticity of stuffed animals. Often the titles of the works reveal the mocking character of the artist, which leaves us waiting for an unexpected ending, whether redeeming or catastrophic, it is not known. But freed from any metaphysical transcendence, Francesco's playful world makes us think of the bestial banality of the human affairs. He obtained an MA in Painting at Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.
Walking Divination A multidisciplinary installation about interpreting/ translating/transforming/transmitting messages received while [trans]migrating within and through a particular time and place.
Orso Czerny Orso Czerny’s multidisciplinary practices are paddles with which he navigates; the compasses guiding him forth - revealing the ritual of creating that binds him to the deeper meanings of being alive and what it means to be human.
NAHR
FELLOWS 2019
DAVE CHAN Ground Thruth
RACHAEL MEAD
SIOBHAN RIGG
Chlorophyll and Casein An Ecopoetry Collection
Rumination and Collected Action
KATIE DE BARI
ANAIS HAZO
Cosonsèi: Pastoral Art of the Alpine Region. GOAT
Always the World Interconnectedness through Hands
SARAH KANTROWITZ Software Cheese A dairy Spa in the Mountain
MING LIN
HEIDI MARIBUT RADIO P.D.O. Community Radio
Ground Truth Ground Truth is an invitation to interface with the Val Taleggio region through an anthropomorphized version of its grasses and pastures. The identity of the valley has been informed through personal documentation of extensive trekking throughout the region. The primary outcome of this project is a web based interactive design fiction in the form of a conversational bot. This bio-inspired digital story is further supported by a website hosting images, video, and GPS mapping of the field research.
Dave Chan Is a creative technologist living in Los Angeles, California, whose work combines design research, emerging technologies and storytelling. His curiosity led him to create critical design prototypes through systems thinking, with particular attention to sustainability and digital identities. David continues to explore and do research, and will complete the MFA in Media Design Practices at the ArtCenter College of Design in 2020.
Chlorophyll and Casein An Ecopoetry Collection Chlorophyll & casein a collection of ecopoems that explore and distil Val Taleggio’s rich cultural history, the ecology of the region and the interconnections that exist between the cheesemaking process and the landscape. Through form, content and sensory observation, these poems bear witness to the Taleggio Valley at this particular moment in time and strive to evoke an authentic sense of place, emphasising ecological connectivity and the interdependence of culture, tradition and landscape.
Rachael Mead Rachael Mead is an Australian poet and short story writer. She has an Honours degree in Classical Archaeology, a Masters in Environmental Studies and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide. She is the author of three poetry collections and she has a collection of short fiction forthcoming in 2020.
Rumination and Collected Action Rumination and Collected Action explores Val Taleggio from the perspective of the first steps in the chain of cheese production – the pastures and grazing animals. In Rumination and Collected Action, the grasses, herbs and associated plants of the pasture push back, exploring the possibilities of sovereignty and political representation without independence and writing their words in pigment produced from their bodies.
Siobhan Rigg Is a Washington DC-based interdisciplinary artist whose creative work and research interests center on how complex issues are formed from the ways that lived spaces and relationships connect with mediated information and virtual encounters. Rigg’s creative and research interests center on the social and environmental histories of particular places and stories and their entrance into the political sphere.
Cosonsèi: Pastoral Art of the Alpine Region. GOAT I celebrate a dish of iterations in name and filling, made with locally gathered ingredients, which also contribute to the cheese chain. By wearing a red nose, I also explore the evolving character of the Arlecchino mask. By dancing at different altitudes, I speculate about the future of species impacted by climate change. By dancing across different mountains, I nod to future changes in what is rooted where. Dancing the recipe straight is acknowledging the linear. Dancing the recipe in retrograde, restructured, and resequenced, allows for mystery, ambiguity, and the portrayal of the non-linear. All that aside...where are the goats?
Katie De Bari Is a performing artist and choreographer. Katie uses theater and dance to research new ways of acknowledging the nonhuman. Katie’s recent performance work, as part of various collectives based in New York City, has been shown at Frederick Loewe Theater, Downtown Playwrights, and Hudson Guild Theater. She received her BFA in Drama (Experimental Theater) from New York University.
Radio P.D.O. Community Radio RADIO P.D.O. brings together a diverse range of materials exploring, questioning, and subverting static and homogenizing narratives of the “Protected Designation of Origin” (P.D.O). Each segment of the programme explores several moments defining an elusive “community” which, in light of the tensions produced when local production and life ways run up against the demands of the global economy, are frequently thrown into flux.RADIO P.D.O. transgresses territorial and cultural boundaries in order to move away from a static or belabored rhetoric of authenticity and closer to definitions inspired by movement, hybridity and itinerancy.
Ming Lin & Heidi Maribut A collaboration between Ming Lin, a writerresearcher interested in global production chains, and Heidi Maribut, a visual artist looking at identity within globalization.
Always the World Interconnectedness thought Hands This project is embedded in milk culture(s), diversity, flora, and simple human action. Milk is collected from the valley and turned into cheese, with the help of various ancient milk cultures. Those cheeses are infused with flowers and vegetal extracts collected in the Val Taleggio. Along with some home-cultured breads, those edible artifacts are displayed as a performative installation, tasted and shared with the community. So milk, flowers and bacterias can infuse within the people of this land. The work also includes an artist publication, including a wide documentation of the processes.
Anais Hazo Is a trans-diciplinary artist and researcher, working at the intersection of art, environmentalism and design. Her practices include food making and studies, photography, poetry and publishing. She is based in Berlin. .
Software Cheese A dairy Spa in the Mountain This work is a prototype for a processing facility in modern regenerative cheesemaking. The simple, open-air plant offers the pleasures of making cheese in a liquid exchange, humbly inviting humans into new practices of ecological communion. Care for the milk and its microbes joins with care for the body joins with care for the built environment of the processing facility. The liberatory gay dairy spa endeavors to hybridize across modern and traditional production modalities, to accept the limitations of both with grace, and to whisper of new, powerfully nourishing relational logics for commercial food processing.
Sarah Kantrowitz Is a designer working at the intersection of food justice and the built environment, primarily through the design of infrastructure for stronger regional food systems. She holds a Master of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from Reed College.
NAHR
FELLOWS 2018
EUNICE ANDRADA To Speck Water
MATTHEW WONG Hidden Waters: Hybrid Representations of Val Taleggio
SKYE MORET Cues for Immersion
JILL ANHOLT Water:Life
TIFFANY HENSCHEL Time is Water
SAMUEL MADDOX Sip, Serve, Share: Symbiotic Pottery
GIULIA MATTERA Sensory Map
To Speak Water Part poetry and part lyric collection, To Speak Water explores the open wounds of water memory. Across languages and bodies of water in the Taleggio Valley to the Philippine islands, these poems speak to the personhood of water as witness, as deity, as sexual being and as a vessel for inherited traumas. Giving a voice to the violences that water endures, Andrada pays homage to Italian poetic forms and Hiligaynon beliefs in her series of communions with water. You can explore the poetic soundscapes that accompany each section of the collection here: https://soundcloud.com/eunice-andrada
Eunice Andrada Is an award-winning Filipina poet, lyricist and teaching artist based in Sydney, Australia. Featured in The Guardian, CNN International, ABC News and other media, she has performed her poetry in diverse international stages, from the Sydney Opera House to the UN Climate Negotiations in Paris.
Water:Life Pure potable water, some of the best in the world, is diverted directly from mineral springs to flow continuously through thousands of public drinking fountains in Italy, delivering a message of water as an infinite, inexhaustible resource. In our current global context of a changing climate, water can no longer be taken for granted as ecosystems and environments that protect vital water resources are becoming more threatened. Drawing attention to the hidden delivery and disposal systems of this valuable yet under-appreciated resource, my project provokes people to notice water again and to remember how precious and important it is to life in all forms. We thanks Pietro Invernizzi, stone artisan.
Jill Anholt Has an art practice that centers on the creation of context specific installations in public spaces. The works she creates reveal invisible processes and hidden narratives, exploring the complex relationship between nature and culture.
Time is Water Time is Water is a multimedia exploration into water as an indication of time in the Taleggio Valley. The project studies the effects of water as they relate to growth, decay, subjectivity, and personal bias through different visualizations and interfaces. Inspired by a plastic bag found during a hike that had essentially turned into the shape of a rock through years of impact with rushing water, these studies hope to enhance our understanding of water as a precious, powerful, yet finite resource rather than omnipresent and perpetual, even in a region where it is seemingly abundant.
Tiffany Henschel Is a transdisciplinary designer, researcher, facilitator, and data lover who seeks to spread knowledge in order to uncover potential connections in hyperlocal spaces. Her work engages communities and individuals on an intimate scale, combining physical and virtual worlds to reveal the nuances and ephemeral aspects of communication and interpersonal exchange.
Sip, Serve, Share: Ceramics of Symbiosis Water is political, not partisan. It simultaneously inscribes lines between countries, peoples, races, and still flows defiantly past political boundaries. Water can be both a promising means of transport and also a scarce commodity for imperiled migrants, responding to the call of prosperity as a stream winds down the mountainside beckoned by gravity. Sip, Serve, Share is a reflection on the relocation of refugees to the remote villages of northern Italy and the resultant challenge of finding community while being perceived as a transient other. A series of puzzle-like water vessels reactivates the fontanella— an ancient symbol of democracy and equality— as a social node by requiring communication, collaboration, and community in order to function.
Samuel Maddox Is an architect interested in the capacity of design to create, promote, and sustain equity. His research primarily lies at the intersection of the environmental humanities and sociospatial justice, with particular interest in urban-rural disparities.
Sensory Map How does the body react to water? How does your body eliminate water and how do these processes affect the environment? What is the effect of cold water on the body? The final result of this research is a site-specific work consisting of a multisensorial map/guide that will lead each audience in an individual journey of self-discovery and reconnection. Via it the audience member will be able to directly engage and experience the effects of water through his/her emotional, sensorial and physical body.
Giulia Mattera Is a performance artist whose work questions gender, everyday life and socially structured ritualized behaviors. Her research based practice explores natural elements via the body, through which she sets herself tasks that deal with failure and challenge the preconceptions of bodymind limitations.
Cues for Immersion I explored the nuanced, indexical thresholds within the Taleggio landscape and aquatic ecosystems and paired these experiments with an investigation of investigation itself. What makes a place truly unique? What objective and subjective cues allow us to understand our environment and how can we reflexively explore these cues? By highlighting thresholds visually, I created prompt cards that allow both residents and visitors to explore and discuss the valley’s environment at multiple spatial scales. Through curious engagement and transdisciplinary perspective, participants contextualize their natural surroundings in a rich and pragmatic way, adding to the collective dialogue of the valley.
Skye Morét Is a data-driven designer. Her diverse background in marine science — having sailed 80,000+ miles around the globe — fuels her belief in the power of art and design in communicating nature and science. Her work investigates the complex relationship between nature and technology-mediated human expectations, experiences, and engagement.
Hidden Waters Hidden Waters is a portrait of Val Taleggio’s watershed, drawn with the intention of expanding the spatial understanding of the valley’s hydrologic network. By employing the use of drone technology, field notes, and analog forms of documentation, the investigation aims to develop a telescopic view of the valley’s hydroelectric infrastructural network along the Enna River. The drawing focuses on illustrating the relationship between infrastructure, topography and water as actors underlying Val Taleggio’s ecology.
Matthew G. Wong Is a landscape designer exploring the interface between artificial and natural systems through various modes of representation. His current work concerns large scale landscapes of production involving agricultural arrangements and hydrologic systems of the southwest United States. He holds a Bachelor’s of Science from the University of California, Davis and a Masters of Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he was awarded the Norman T. Newton Prize.
NAHR
FELLOWS 2017
GRETA RUEDISUELI Stone in the Landscape: Cycles of Materiality
GIULIA PELLEGRINI The Stone Alive
JUAN BARTE The Land is Good. Bio-inspired Photography in the Taleggio Valley
JOSHUA G. STEIN Stone Scan Specimens: A Hybrid Language of Extraction and Assembly
HO-TING WEI Who's - Tone
ANA CATALINA GUBANDRU Mysterious Object, on Hard
APRIL GREIMAN Seeing is a Way of Thinking, Thinking a Way of Seeing
Stone in the Landscape: Cycles of Materiality The form and composition of stone evolve as the material undergoes processes of extraction, implementation, and degradation by exposure to natural and human forces. The intentional and accidental placement of rocks and stones create a framework for the movement of plants. From the moss-covered boulder to the agricultural drywall, human experience in the landscape shifts with the presence of erosion and vegetation. By analyzing the dynamic behaviors of vegetation across rock, living systems serve not only as an aesthetic and experiential design tool, but also as a structural element to help sustain architectural and landscape design.
Greta Ruedisueli Is an architecture that explores the way people experience space and perceive environments through the hands and the eyes. Fascinated by all scales of design, she considers buildings, infrastructure, landscapes, and human interactions as one continuous fabric. With a Bachelor's of Science in Architecture, Greta is currently pursuing a Masters in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Stone Scan Specimens: A Hybrid Language of Extraction and Assembly Stone Scan Specimens is a taxonomy of the stone patterns generated by various strategies of extraction and construction in the Val Brembana region. These 3D digital scans (created through photogrammetry technology) document a long history of human interface with the natural and geological surroundings. Although vernacular assemblies (baite huts, masonry walls of the mulattiere, piode roofs, and stone churches) are an important part of the areas cultural and physical patrimony, the sites of extraction that provided their materials are equally a part of the legacy of human invention and impact.
Joshua G. Stein Is the founder Radical Craft, a Los Angeles-based studio that advances design saturated in history (from archaeology to craft) that inflects the production of contemporary urban spaces and artifacts. He is the co-director of the Data Clay Network, Professor of Architecture at Woodbury University, and was a 2010-11 Rome Prize Fellow in Architecture.
Who's- Tone Who's-Tone is a short animation. The story is about an unusual conversation between the character and different rocks. Infact, the character believes stones are empathetic and can feel and heal her. This project aims to explore the spiritual relationship between stones and humans, and from which the artist's wounded heart is healed through the experience. The work hopes to present the power of healing of Mother Nature.
Ho-Ting Wei Is an animation filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Taiwan. Her work attempts to attract people to embrace tough environmental or social issues by using interesting artistic ways. She holds a MFA in Animation and Film Art from Tainan National University of the Arts.
The Stone Alive Stone becomes the subject of a series of actions that open up a reflection, not only on rural culture that for a long time has characterized the territory and human settlements of Val Taleggio, but also its physical and geological characteristics. The focus is on his "word", his "skin", and his "memory". A story, told through different steps, that brings the spectator to think of this material as a living, dynamic, inert, and immobile. The project looks at rocks as a vital element that interacts with human culture in craftsmanship.
Giulia Pellegrini Graduated in Painting, Visual Arts, and Curatorial Studies at Naba, in Milan. She is attracted to the chromatic, dimensional, organic aspects of the individual elements that characterize the environment around her. She classifies, selects, studies each element to focus her attention on the transformation which happens in each environment, system, body and energy within matter. Transformation and energy, along with the idea of time which is identified in her works with the concept of duration, are the main subjects of her works.
Mysterious Object, on Hard She will research the presence of the body within the rocks and stones environment, the magical potential of the rocks and stones and its correspondence within humans and the human body. She will make performative interventions in nature using body, rocks and stones. The outcome will be the performance and the photovideo documentation of the process.
Ana Catalina Gubandru Is an independent choreographer and performer, born and based in Bucharest, Romania. She works with various concepts and media, performances, performing and body expressivity, written and improvised text, sound, interviews, photography, film, participatory art, reused handmade objects, drawings and installations.
The Land is Good. Bio-Inspired Photography in the Taleggio Valley This work explores the gap between images and objects, bridging it through a bio-inspired process that results in a perfect symbiosis between the natural constituents of the photography subjects and the actual photographs. The resulting photographs go beyond representation and metaphor merging culture and nature. To this end the darkroom process is polluted with the very essences of the Taleggio Valley: its water, soil, stones, bacteria. In this process the images are revealed through chance, noise and non-programed events. The result are photographs not consciously expected. They are at once serial and singular, have a mechanic look, but are done manually, each of them unique and unrepeatable.
Juan Barte Barte’s work has been widely published in specialized media and exhibited in both galleries and public institutions. He is also coordinator of Photobook Club Madrid, actively promoting photography culture through different events.
Seeing is a Way of Thinking, Thinking a Way of Seeing
This photography project explores the relationship of nature as recorded, analyzed and enhanced through digital technology, and probes more deeply through scale change. Of particular interest is the discovery and capture of "hidden" information for example, subtle color palettes, not easily seen with the naked eye, at actual scale or in the natural light condition. The reduced size of the natural material allows for a compressed visual product of color palette, both real, and in combination with the texture of technology.
April Greiman Thinker and artist whose works include various trans-media projects using innovative technology combined with an exploratory hybrid-based approach. Explorations of image, word and color as objects in time and space are grounded in a singular fusion of art and technology. Her body of work is varied in media, scale and application with a common purpose to augment the imagination and amplify the core values expressing one's perceptions before nature.
NAHR
FELLOWS 2016
MAURIAH KRAKER Track/Shul
ISABELLE DUVIVIER The Woods at Home from Biophobia to Biofilia
SABINA MAGLIOCCO Nature and the Spiritual Imagination the Woods in the Culture of Val Taleggio
ELENA BREBENEL Whispers of the Forest
ELKE EICHMANN Beauty in Imperfection
JAY YOWELL Tree Bark as Model for Architecture
JENNY RODENHOUSE The Enchanted Forest
Track / Shul Building movement sequences in both rural and urban environments of the Taleggio Valley, Kraker's solo work focured on imprinting the land both with her presence and absence.
Mauriah Kraker Created projects on printing presses in Germany, in rivers of the Midwest, under bridges in Taiwan and Bangkok's zombie buildings. Currently, she is an MFA Candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Whispers of the Forest Whispers of the Forest, draws inspiration from the symbiotic relationships existent in teh woods of Val Taleggio. The focus is on mutually beneficial relationships that lay at the core of the good functioning on the Woods, making it an example of a healthy habitat. In addition, the project also builds upon the beneficial properties of local plants.
Elena Brebenel Is a textile undertaking in London. can help us environment
designer and researcher currently a PhD at Central Saint Martins She investigates how biomimicry develop artifacts for the domestic that addresses indoor air pollution.
Beauty in Imperfection Spending time in nature opens our eyes to the profound beauty of imperfection. The natural cycle of growth, decay and death shows the simple, slow and uncluttered essence of lide. It is like in the Japanese concept of Wabi-sabi where simplicity, asymmetry or irregularity lead to a meditation of impermanence and trasience of things. this project is a concentrated visual research on the woods in the Val Taleggio. These trees lead a difficult existence and fight against the topography, water, erosion and weather. I combined the view of a photographer and architect on nature, whereby trying to catch the specific significance of the Taleggio Valley.
Elke Eichmann Is an architect and photographer, she lives and works in Zürich.
Tree Bark as a Model for Tree Bark as Model explores how trees, specifically their bark, found in the woods of the Taleggio Valley can serve as inspiration for improving architectural building envelopes. Outcomes are a series of analytical frawings on the research of tree bark as well as regional architecture of the Taleggio Valley and also proposing concepts for new building envelopes. Additionally, local bark from the region will be collected and displayed.
Jay Yowell Is an architect in Edmond, Oklahoma and a professor at the University of Oklahoma. He enjoys outdoor activities and this connection to nature has lead to a passion for bio-inspired design. Recent research has been on applying bio-inspiration to building skins.
The Enchanted Forest: Satellite Cnopies and Digital Understories By 2019, remote laser scanning technology (LiDAR) will be installed on the International Space Station. As it orbits the earth, it will collect forest carbon data for each site it passes. Using woodlands located in Sottochiesa Italy, LiDAR mapping, and iPhone ISS locator applications, the project simulates a digital forest that appears and disappears with the passing of the International Space Station. With each fly over, the forest becomes a more and more dense collection of past, current, and future trees. Evolving into a digital data bank, the video imagines the forest as an interface for international climate policies and carbon trading economies.
Jenny Rodenhouse a multimedia designer and artist, whose work examines the merging of the interface and the landscape. Appropriating the test site, places of experimentation, she explores the implications of emerging technology, creating hybrid virtual/ physical, artificial/ natural, local/ global environments.
Nature and teh Spiritual Imagination: the Woods in the Culture of Val Taleggio The project examines the relationship between spiritual and ontological concepts of nature and sustainable practices by comparing traditional ways of relating to the woods of the Val Taleggio to the "new animism", a form of environmentalism that uses imaginative praxes to create relationships with nature.
Sabina Magliocco A Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Northridge. She has published on religion, folklore, foodways, festival and witchcraft in Europe and the United States, and is a leading authority on the modern Pagan movement. Her current research is on nature and spiritual imagination.
The Woods at Home: from Biophobia to Biofilia Inspired by the butterfly's relationship to nature and by human-managed forests, the project is exploring ways of stirring humans away fro Biophobia - fear of the outdoors particularly of spiders and snakes - towords Biophilia - attraction and connection to nature. By creating a butterflyhiman friendly architecture, we will expand the woods/meadows into cities, increase bio-diversity within and outside the city and create a wellneeded appreciation of our natural resources.
Isabelle Duvivier is an American-Belgian architect, Principal of DUVIVIER ARCHITECTS, located in Venice Beach , California. She is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She received her Masters degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where she also studied math and welding. She is interested in the integration of nature in the built environment.
NAHR
FELLOWS 2015
EUGENIA BERTULIS
MYCK DALRYMPLE
Posthuman Centered Design
Visions of Circular Economy through the Lens of Taleggio Valley
MONICA COHEN INSPERIENCE - The Labyrinth of the Senses through Emotions
IDIL KEMALOGLU
CHRISTOPHER NORMAN 1760 A Porous Wall in Val Taleggio
KRONOS – “Mountain Moruk“
ROBIN NANNEY Mirror Box
MAURO SACCHI
YUHE LIN Were Here
Posthuman - Centered Design The design research project carried out at the NAHR residency is a response to the philosophical provocation that non-humans might have forms of agency. Human-centered design methods dominate industrial design practice today. How would a shift in epistemology from human-centered to more-than-human-centered design influence these research methods? What might it mean to ask a honeybee to give informed consent? What does a co-creative activity with a goat or a snail look like? How would one engage cheese cultures in an ethnographic probe?
Eugenia Bertulis Is an award-winning industrial designer teaching medical equipment design and digital part design at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, BC, Canada. She is also doing PhD research at Simon Fraser University on plastic and plasticity as a philosophical model for ethical product design.
Visions of Circular Economy through the Lens of Taleggio Valley In order to avoid running out of resources on a finite planet, our economy must transition to one in resources are recycled infinitely. The world can learn more about how to accomplish this by studying local, sustainable agricultural communities such as in the Taleggio Valley, where residents have been producing unique local cheeses for tens of generations with the same land, rain and sunshine.
Myck Dalrymple Serves as the Director of University Sustainability Practices and a Senior Sustainability Scientist at Arizona State University, United States.
INSPERIENCE, The Labyrinth of the Senses through Emotions INSPERIENCE is an experience of self-transformation. This biophilic experiential project intends to change the harmful impact on our shared environment through an experience of senses. It takes place in virtual spaces that invite locals and tourists to increase their awareness on the pre-existent system of communication between human beings and nature. INSPERIENCE proposes an emulation of the system of communication between plants, fungi and insects that belong to the natural ecosystem of the Orobie Alps.
Monica Cohen Is an Architect and Certified Biomimicry Specialist. Born in Argentina and founder of “Biomimicry Argentina Network,” she works with organizations on special projects to create a new approach with innovations inspired by nature.
1760, A Porous Wall in Val Taleggio The Spanish Dukedom of Milan and the Republic of Venice divided the Taleggio Valley and marked the agreement with a series of stela known as Termenú. Today, the Termenú are beautiful sculptural pieces worth visiting and understanding. The project presents the experience of getting to know the Termenú through maps and photographs.
Christopher Norman Graduated at Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles - California, is practicing residential architecture in Los Angeles.
Were Here Were Here is a multidisciplinary project, an exploration of the habitat of Sottochiesa, Taleggio, through live performance, video art, photography, and street art. WE make visible the presence/absence of the body - be it human, animal, alive or inanimate - in the natural and built environment, and its effects therein: transforming the outer space it is in (or not), however ephemerally, it stimulates an inner impression, a thought, a feeling upon the viewer. Here lies the possibility for communication.
YuHe (Bonnie) Lin & Mauro Sacchi She is Taiwanese performer, choreographer and video artist; he is an Italian performer and artist, based in Taiwan. Together they are WE Theatre (a Company that Makes Stuff).
Mirror Box The Mirror Box project is a means of exploring an abstract relationship between the ground and imaginary space. The landscape in Val Taleggio is not a passive character and it engulfs a series of project models comprised largely of mirrors. The result is a mixedup large space hiding within the earth.
Robin Nanney Designer currently living and working in Los Angeles. Although she carries a BFA in sculpture from RISD and work experience on large-scale projects from Gehry Partners, Robin’s primary work is as a residential designer grounded in craft, with a passion for material authenticity.
KRONOS - "Mountain Moruk" Mountain Moruk , Project Kronos born from the idea of creating a cabinet of curiosities in a form of an open air museum at Taleggio Valley , to piedmont of alpines where Sottochiesa is located . Design of the installation inspired by geomorphological formation of the alpines. Mountain moruk brings together natural elements of Taleggio Valley by creating a path and by layering the elements towards their altitudes.
Idil Kemalogiu Graduated in architecture from the Politecnico of Milano, she is currently attending a Master of Architecture student at École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Lyon (E.N.S.A.L.), France.
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Nature, Art & Habitat Residency (NAHR) is an Eco-laboratory of Multidisciplinary Practices that looks at the relationship between nature and culture. The ultimate goal of NAHR is to unveil intimate links among all living organisms for more resilient development in which humans and nature are shown to coexist.
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