WORKSHOP 10/2024

MUSE – Museo delle Scienze, Trento, Italy

This workshop, tutored by Michela Dal Brollo on behalf of the Living Equipment Portable Space collective, involved the participants in the collaborative creation of paper using pulp derived from the vegetable fibers found in the excrement of ruminants such as deer, goats, and cows animals, whose stomachs finely shred plant material. The workshop stems from research into biomaterial recipes developed by the artistic duo.

The concept behind these material experiments is to reflect on how the activities of animals are intertwined with the landscape shaping each other and to reflect on how, as humans, we can find inspiration in forms of reciprocity with natural environments. 

The workshop was accompanied by the screening of the short film ‘Respigar Espinhos’ by Michela Dal Brollo and Ines Ballesteros, filmed in the village of Casa Branca. The short film shows other processes of experimentation with biomaterials and culinary practices with local plants.

RESIDENCY 09/2024

ESTAÇÃO COOPERATIVA de Casa Branca, Casa Branca, Portugal

In 2024, Michela Dal Brollo and Inés Ballesteros participated in a residency in Casa Branca, an old railway village inhabited by a few dozen of people in the interior of the region of Alentejo in Portugal. Our focus during the residency was to work with the ingredients and natural materials that were available locally at that time and, with some abundance, spices of plants that manage to survive the heat of the driest season of the year in a decertified landscape, some of them centuries old, others arriving from distant lands, some wild, and some domesticated.

During the residency, we processed the plants we collected into food and biomaterial recipes, gathering as well some seasonal local recipes from neighbors. 

This research was presented and transformed into an artistic video titled: Respigar Espinhos and a sculptural piece named MUTA, created with biomaterials. The two works were shown during an open event and exhibition at the museum Terras de Ferro. The interplay between these two works invites reflection on the landscape and territorial resources through the metaphor of the recipe. The final exhibition was accompanied by a food event where we prepared recipes discovered during the residency, cooked with living equipment tools: Cum-panis and Mud fire.

RESPIGAR ESPINHOS 

short film

The film Respigar Espinhos presents itself as an experimental archive of biomaterial and food recipes research, accompanied by spatial and environmental reflections. The film highlights the connection to the local landscape, blending traditional knowledge and various processes of food recipes and biomaterial experimentation.

Inspired by thorns, mucilage sap, and fibers of local plants, the artists humorously personified the vegetal ingredients of the presented recipes, prompting reflections on the reciprocity between human bodies and plant bodies.

The movie was shown at Museum Terras de Ferro, casa Branca, Portugal and MUSE Museum, Trento Italy 

MUTA

Sculpture

In the Alentejo tradition, women sew patchwork bags for bread made from fabric scraps. This technique inspired the creation of MUTA, pieces sewn together from self-produced bioplastic and plant-based papers. Muta is reminiscent of a map and skin left behind by a hybrid creature. The materials from which MUTA is made are derived from heat-resistant plant species such as cactus thistles and acorns, capable of surviving arid landscapes.

Produced in the context of the artistic residency at  ESTAÇÃO COOPERATIVA de Casa Branca  

with the financial assistance of the European Union. Culture moves Europe.

LIST OF EXPLORED RECIPES

BenEsseri

WORKSHOP 08/2024

La Foresta, Rovereto, Italy

Living Equipment came to Rovereto with a workshop tutored by Michela Dal Brollo. The workshop focused on the concept of “recipe”. The recipes were used as a tools for exchange to reflect on issues such as community, cultural heritage and sustainable practices.

Multigenerational prints

Participants explored the theme through hands-on activities, such as DIY printing with the low-tech techniques of the GELATIONGRAFO. 

The workshop involved the guests of a retirement home, who enriched the experience with intergenerational knowledge and perspectives. The participants contributed to printing the recipes, expressing themselves through drawing and writing.

The shared recipes, linked to the Trentino tradition, became an opportunity to exchange memories and reflect on the theme of resistance to consumerism. Each recipe and ingredient shared tells stories of territories, migrations and traditions.

The workshop concluded with the creation of collective prints with photosensitive ink, deliberately impermanent, to symbolize the fluid and temporary nature of the informal knowledge transmission. This unconventional way of recording knowledge became like a ‘living archive’ that evolves over time and across generations.

The city as recipe

We held a second workshop to reflect on the city and urban space as a recipe, with territorial resources as ingredients. We also explored how the recipe can be a methodological cue for design (inspired Il riso verde Bruno Munari). Using these suggestions, we imagined ‘relational tools’ for urban space. 

The day ended with the presentation of Living Equipment’s relational tools, the projection of the film The Last Summer, and a parallel between the topics discussed, especially that of the recipe, with the artistic and methodological research of the artists’ duo.

Organized by Acropoli Trento and La Foresta Rovereto, curated by AIDEL and financed by GiPro.

Foto di Sara Di Valerio.

The Last Summer

A short film by Ines Ballesteros, Michela Dal Brollo and Alicja Nowicz

RESIDENCY and INTERVENTION IN PUBLIC SPACE 7/2023

Halo Kultura, Międzytorze, Gdynia ,Poland

In 2023 during fourteen summer days, Michela Dal Brollo, Ines Ballesteros, and Alicja Nowicz take part in the dynamics of the Międzytorze. To start relating with the space they use a tool called cum-panis, a self-made portable pizza oven. 

During the moments of sharing, the phones used for filming pass from hand to hand, thus questioning who is the observer and who is the observed subject.

FILM SYNOPSIS

The last summer became a testimony of Międzytorze, a space in a postindustrial area of Gdynia (PL) that borders the city centre. 

In contrast to the hectic surroundings, life in Międzytorze moved in slow motion, as if waiting for its end.

This temporary unproductive land breaks the density of the urban landscape, becoming the house of human and non-human inhabitants, welcoming erratic beings and wild plant species.

A group of homeless people gave Międzytorze new rules, transforming it into a place with its own internal geography. Areas called Portugal or Spain were public spaces furnished with objects rejected by the city, spaces with room for confrontation, mutual support, and sharing frustrations.

The story of Międzytorze is the same story of millions of other places in the world. The wild cherry trees and spontaneous plants were replaced by skyscrapers and its inhabitants were forced to emigrate, defining a new periphery. The summer ended and with the spring came the bulldozers to destroy this place as we knew it. Real estate developers lay the foundations for skyscrapers to grow. 

Produced in the context of the artistic residency at Halo Kultura 

Co-financed by the City of Gdynia and Flanders State of the Art.

The movie was shown at Halo Kultura, Gdynia, and in the Archipel site and Het Bos, Antwerp.

Memorie future – Disseminati

SOLO EXHIBITION and PERFORMANCE 6/2023

Memorie future, S. Osvaldo church, Rovereto,Italy

Solo exhibition:

“The monographic exhibition at S. Osvaldo is entirely dedicated to the project Living Equipment: portable spaces, by Michela Dal Brollo and Ines Ballesteros, and is articulated between their visionary inventions and the documentation of their use in performances carried out in different cities in Europe between 2019 and 2023.” Elena Righini (curator)

Part of the exhibition showcases sculptural tools used during the workshop-performance. The ‘Parol della Polenta’, a typical Trentino pot supported on a tripod is used to mix ingredients and pieces of storytelling to prepare gelatine used for printting.  The gelatin was then pureed into other clay sculptures called ‘Laghi’.

Performance:

“To elaborate on this relational installation Michela and Ines drew inspiration from trichoptera, small creatures that live in rivers or lakes. These aquatic insects have a soft and vulnerable exoskeleton, so they build their own ‘shell’ using their saliva and materials found in the surrounding environment. Depending on the environment, the created shell changes color and shape, sustainably adapting to the space. Their method of assembly inspires the artists, who create, together with the participants of the interactive workshops, a collage of ideas, which are then expressed through gelatin printing. A collective habitat is thus created, founded around the gelatin according to the specificities of the place involved in the process”. Elena Righini

Elena Righini curated the exhibition. The exhibition took part in the program of Memorie Future organized by Spazio Piera and il Funambolo associations. 

Thanks to the partnership of Scuola di S. Osvaldoando and La Foresta who supported our project.

The sculpture “Laghi” was shown and performed as well during the festival Osvaldo Oltre e Oltre in the form of a workshop  to make collective drawings

Pigtails & Pigeon Wings – Board Game

Cibo Casa Città

WORKSHOP 10/2022

Organized by Cultural Association La seconda luna Laives, Italy

How our cities will be linked to food in the future?

The project CIBO CASA CITTÀ was divided into four meetings and aimed to involve the community of Laives and neighboring communities in a discussion on how food determines the city’s shape and how the city defines the type of society that inhabits it. 

The initiative proposed a reflection on various themes (food, urban planning, self-construction, and relationships). 

Toutor of the laboratories: Sara Filippi Plotegher – Scientific illustrator and nutritionist; Marco Cestarolli – Architect-craftsman; Michela Dal Brollo- Living equipment: portable spaces – Relational artist.

During the last meeting, each participant was invited to bring an ingredient and tell something related to it. We mixed the ingredients and the participants’ stories. The ingredients brought became the filling for the pizzas cooked with the Living equipment cum panis.

Art go East

In the context of the ART GO EAST biennial we participate in the exhibition “To enchant” at Poege Haus In Leipzig together with the artists, Aleksandra Majzel, Gijs Watershoot and Rien Schellemans

We use the exhibition space as an open studio space to organize an intervention in public space.

“The living equipment” intrudes a small portion of public space. We proposed to the participants a game to create a story by reimagining infrastructures and characters of the surrounding space. Each invented character, needs another participant to complete and animate it.
The Gelatinografo and cum panis were the devices used to imagine a place with other relationships and gravity. The intervention in public space concludes with the creation of a small publication.

Fotos: Nathalie Valeska Schüler

How To Survive as an Artist

RESIDENCY 8/2022 

Biennale van Mol-Rauw, Belgium

Michela Dal Brollo and Inés Ballesteros join the Biennale van Mol-Rauw with their Living Equipment tools. In this edition, the Biennale van Mol-Rauw is organized around the topic “How to survive as an artist”.

Dis-Connected

EXHIBITION 05/2022 

Antwerp Art Weekend, Vleeshaak  Archipel site, Antwerp, Belgium

Five of the Living Equipment: Cum-Panis, Gelatinografo, Bibliotek, Ruotala, and our Mapping Tool have been staged in the group exhibition “Dis-connected” during the “Antwerp Art Weekend,” in the Vleeshaak, Archipel.

By exhibiting indoors, the habitat of “Living equipment” is transformed giving more attention to their sculptural values. In the exhibition, it was possible to concentrate on how we subvert the logic of usual design objects, such as tables, wheelchairs, or parapending merging their functions and changing their anatomy. 

The “living equipment” are shown as objects with personalities, experiences, and stories about the world outside the exhibition, where they create unforeseen circumstances. 

The narratives produced were shown through prints about the stories and drawings of experiences lived in public spaces elaborated into new narratives.

Stone Soup Session

INTERVENTION IN PUBLIC SPACE 05/2022 

Supported by the research group B&M reinvented (RAFA), Den Dam, Antwerp, Belgium

On the occasion of the soup session, we presented our research methodology on a work-in-progress site of the Den Dam, Antwerp, under the bridge of the ring (R1).

We present ourselves with Ruotala, our portable studio on wheels. We introduce our methodology of research and show how we use our research tools Living Equipment to collaborate with “liminal” public spaces of Antwerp.

The food prepared was made with collected spontaneous weeds. The artists talk about each plant present in the recipes introducing their strategy to reproduce and transform human-build environments and how their behaviors can be an inspiration for artistic methodology. 

On the menu and protagonist of the Soup session:

(IDW) re-ACT by design International

WORKSHOP Masterclass tutoring 02/2022 

University of Antwerp / Royal Academy of Fine Arts 

Archipel – Luchtbal, Antwerp, Belgium

In the context of the RESEARCH WEEK, re-ACT by Design organized by the Faculty of Design Sciences, we tutored the MASTER CLASS called “Living Equipment – portable spaces”.  The workshop was intended for students of Fine Arts from the Academy and students of UA Departments of Architecture, Product Development, Interior Architecture, and Heritage.

The week was organized through the different Living Equipment tools, with one day of mapping spaces to intervene, one day of printing and communicating with neighbors, one day of setting up the structure and experimenting with its possibilities, and one final day where the different tools come together also with cooking. 

The didactical aim of the workshop was to experiment and experience the possibilities of mobile and relational architecture with the students. 

On the interventions in public space, we collaborate with the neighbor Pierre DJ

https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/international-design-workshops/react-by-design-2022/workshops/

Last Month Tonight

RESIDENCY and Lecture performance 09/2021

Wpzimmer, Antwerp, Belgium

https://wpzimmer.be/nl/residencies/living-equipment-portable-spaces/

During “Last Month Tonight”, residents and members of wpZimmer’s community came together to share their research questions and present their processes and projects.  

We gave a lecture-performance where we performed one of The Living Equipment, the Gelatingrafo, as a tool for dialogue and collective thinking, together with a Living Equipment – Mapping Tool to map threshold spaces of Antwerp. As an output of the session, a series of hectographs prints were produced, illustrating the conversations and thoughts of the participants.

Open Laboratory Weeks

INTERVENTION IN PUBLIC SPACE 23-24 09/2022

Supported by the research group B&M reinvented (RAFA), Antwerp, Belgium

https://www.ap-arts.be/evenement/body-material-reinvented-open-laboratory-weeks

As a contribution to the Open Laboratory, we temporarily activated a common space in the parking space of the Academy at Blindestraat. 

We perform Cum-Panis to prepare food together with the participant and we perform the Gelatinografo to print on location. On this occasion, we used for the first time a Living equipment – Mapping Tool specifically made to map the threshold space of Antwerp. 

These tools were used to open conversation about the potential of so-called “liminal places”. 

During the “Open Laboratory Weeks”, we create situations to share knowledge around the following questions: How can we use liminal places for diverse and heterogeneous urban practices? How can we as artists and citizens reclaim them as public spaces?

Stone Soup

RESIDENCY 07/2020  

Supported by Kunstenplatform PLAN B Antwerp, Belgium

Stone Soup, is inspired by an oral story in which two travellers travel from village to village. When they arrive in the village, they announce that they will make a soup with just a stone, they only ask each resident to bring a vegetable. In the end, the entire village eats the soup they made together. With that story in mind and equipped with nothing more than a portable oven and some kitchen utensils, we made an itinerary from Antwerp to the Ruppel River, where we spent the night in residents’ gardens and cooked with what was available. Using local ingredients and knowledge of how to make something with them to organize a collective meal.

Stone soup is conceived as itinerant research, to experiment with a nomadic methodology in rural areas.  

The Living Equipment cum-panis and gelatinografo have been performed during the itinerary in Noeverm in the Ruppel region. The collected materials, about the territory’s ecologically and socially complex history, have been edited into the Stone Soup publication and redistributed on the location.