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