A video triptych "Ritual" consists of three different videos that were made during a artistic residency in Italy, Puglia. The residency focused on archiving the town of Melpignano, where we stayed with seventeen international performers for twenty-two days.
We collected stories, memories, and experiences from the locals of Melpignano to inspire creative artworks as an intimate exchange with the community. We looked for stories and signs of life — in stones, objects, hands, trees, works of art, faces, voices, sounds, music, rituals, streets, etc. The emphasis was not on the quality of the work but more on the learning experience and the possibility of learning from each other. At the end of the residency, we created a pop-up installation in the Palazzo Marchesale for the local community. Later the wroks have been showed at TASE'22 graduation exhibition.
RITUAL: OILING OF THE OLIVE TREE (2022)
The deadly bacterium Xylella fastidiosa has killed millions of olive trees in southern Italy. The infection limits the tree's ability to move water, over time its leaves turn dry and the tree dies.
For the ritual, you must take three liters of olive oil and oil the olive tree again.
The idea of finding one dead olive tree and covering it with olive oil has been on my mind since arriving in the Puglia region in April 2022. Every time we drove somewhere, we could see massive fields of olive trees that used to be alive. When I asked about that phenomenon, the Italians explained the cause: a deadly bacterium, xylella fastidiosa, had killed millions of olive trees in southern Italy. One of the hardest-hit areas was the Lecce province in the Puglia region. Xylella is considered one of the most dangerous pathogens for plants anywhere in the world. It can infect cherry, almond, plum trees, and olives. It has become closely associated with olives after a strain was discovered in trees in Puglia in Italy in 2013. The organism is transmitted by sap-sucking insects such as spittlebugs. The infection limits the tree's ability to move water and nutrients, and over time, its leaves turn yellow and dry, then whole branches wither away, and the tree dies. At present, there is no cure for the infection. It was a sort of ritual that had to be executed by impregnating the same olive oil the tree used to give.
BETWEEN THE STONES (2022)
I'm being held by the stones as if there is no entrance and exit, only a place in between.
I started by coming to the passage till the part where I could not squeeze myself anymore, and I began to take poses there. At one point, I could simply take my legs away from the ground and hang in the air by being held by the stones. It was scary, powerful, calm, and claustrophobic at that moment. It again provoked a lot of images in my head - as if my body was stuck between two walls and at any moment, the walls were going to go together and crush me as if I am in a bed covered by sheets, as if I am in front of a mourning wall, as if I am being held by two arms or by a grave of bodies...
THREE WAVES (2022)
The body is still and the waves are out of my control. I just close my eyes and wait for three waves to go over me.
The "Three Waves "session came spontaneously and had to be executed at the exact second the idea came because the water would be calm in the following days. During the last week of April, I went to the cliff coast right after strong windy days. The waves were powerful that morning. They were hitting the rocks and going high up for several meters. My idea was to go to the edge, lie down like a rock, and get hit by the waves. The only thing I could do was to lie down and hold on to something because the waves could hit and push me away. At first, I was freezing and scared, and when the first strong wave hit, the water went into my face. I could not breathe or move, and it felt like the water would never end. After a while, my body got warmer, and I could let myself loose. The fear was over, and I stopped caring about myself from that moment. If the waves had taken me, I would not have minded it.
Therefore, I just closed my eyes and counted the seconds.