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Ep.66 Live, Somatic Art with Plants and Giulia Mattera
101 Plays5 months ago
A fascinating discussion with Giulia about the importance of human/non-human collaboration through performance and somatic art. Giulia collaborates with otherkin, and sees this collaboration as a way to tackle the ecological crisis. To embody this partnership, she moved her artist's studio into the garden.
Giulia Mattera is an artist-researcher working with Live Art. Her practice explores ecology, human-nonhuman collaboration, and somatic practices situated in the garden. She has shown her work internationally in Europe, USA, and Latin America. Mattera is currently a PhD candidate at BCU (UK) researching ecological issues via Live Art corporeal practices situated in the garden, which she forefronts as the artist’s studio.
Topics Covered about somatic art
➡️ Immersive performance art sparks ecological awareness
➡️ Interspecies collaborations through somatic practices
➡️ Methodology for human/non-human collaboration in live art
➡️ Dialogue between plants and humans using non-conventional means
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Transcript
Introduction of Julia Matera and Her Artistic Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. It's me, Tigra Gardenia. And this is such a good episode. I have a fantastic guest for you that you're really going to enjoy. And I i found this guest actually on um on ah another website that I'm on. And when I saw her work, it was called Flower Bodies. I just knew I had to talk to her because that sent me to her Instagram and her Instagram had all these amazing interspecies projects. So she is a live artist. She creates live art or performance art and somatic performance art in particular. Her name is Julia Matera.
00:00:50
Speaker
And what I love about what she's doing is that she has moved the entire laboratory into the garden in order for her to go to where her collaborators are, which are, of course, all of the non-human world. So this is episode 66 of Live Art with Plants and Julia Matera, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. Welcome to reconnect with plant wisdom. I'm your host Tigri La Gardenia, nature inspired mentor and leadership coach. In this podcast, I share ancient and modern knowledge from biology to spirituality about the wondrous ways in which plants can help you lead a naturally conscious life.
00:01:37
Speaker
Ciao, Julia. vinveutta Welcome, welcome. Ciao, thank you. So i'm I am so looking forward to this conversation, and I already have a whole list of things I want to talk about. But before we start, I'd love for you to tell people, who is Julia? Okay, thank you for inviting me first. um So I'm Julia Matra, I'm a performance artist and um specifically I work with live art somatic practices related to ecology and the idea for humans to collaborate with non-humans. So to create experiences for the wider community towards alternative sustainable futures, multi-species futures.
00:02:25
Speaker
I'm already loving it. As a person who was a dancer for many years and who, thanks to the last few years of working with, for those in the video, the plant that I'm pointing to right now, which is no name Drosenia, has finally come back into her body. As a matter of fact, I took out, I have a bag of dance shoes. And I took out like my bag of dance shoes, which of course ah is all kinds of dance and performance work. And I'm like, ooh, I'm gonna have fun with these again. So how did you get into
Julia's Artistic Journey and Ecological Inspirations
00:02:56
Speaker
this? How did you get into this type of performance work and specifically with the non-human?
00:03:03
Speaker
So when I found out about performance art, I almost couldn't believe it because I felt like I finally came home and I've always thought, like used my brain in a way that was very much thinking about performances before I actually knew it was a thing. I was like, oh, I could do this, but I didn't know it was a performance. So when I found out it was, you know, there were performances and it was, you know, it's an art form, I couldn't believe it. And I was like, okay, maybe that's my thing. And then I really felt the need to align the performance practice with my beliefs and, you know,
00:03:49
Speaker
As I told you before, my granddad is a gardener, and I never really thought about it before the last few months, ah but that might have been an influence to me. And I started working, you know, trying to find ways in which I could um create a methodology, which I'm still working on, of course, to collaborate with the non-human through performance. So it was you know more things coming organically together. So I moved my artist studio in a garden. So this idea of how can we actually work directly with the non-human where they are instead of bringing them inside.
00:04:34
Speaker
and you know where they would be. Well it's quite complicated this because of course we have brought all the you know I have plants in my home as well so it's like you know um um how can we also you know and also the idea of the garden then or you know the allotment how we want to call it in English and it's also this idea of practically creating a different an alternative sustainable way of living in the future in the future, which is also now, it's not like a far away distant future, but it's also this idea of um
00:05:09
Speaker
foraging and growing your home food and ah how this creates a very subjective relationship and experience. And I think you you said the word I was going to ask you about, which is relationship, because it sounds like what you started with. I mean, we when for those of us that are not educated in the performance arts, originally we think of performance as this thing on a stage. right? You you go and and you see people doing things on a stage. And then just recently in the plant consciousness commentary that I do, we've hit a few different papers all around performance and performative arts and and other kin performance and how to bring plants
00:05:50
Speaker
no, bring is the wrong word, how to recognize plants as the performers that they are and their interactions with us as humans.
Rethinking Performance and Human-Nature Relations
00:05:59
Speaker
So that already starts to expand the notion that performance is not about a stage. Performance is about a kind of being while being observed. And it's this you know complex piece, but that we we Plants have been performers for as long as we've been performers, right? Because at any point, plants are always around. We've just thought of them as decoration, and now as we recognize their personhood, we realize that the disservice that we're doing to the plants, and so the question becomes,
00:06:33
Speaker
How do, and i'm i'm I'm just assuming here, like for me it even triggers this curiosity of how do I, like you said, move things out into the garden in order for me to say, I'm coming to you now, like I'm recognizing that I've brought you into my spaces for so long. How do I come to you and what comes from that performance when I come out to you? You've had a few really interesting performances like that, like um like so ritual that was literally in the woods. Can you tell us a little bit more about where that came from and what what it even is?
00:07:12
Speaker
Yes, and also thank you for this, um you know, for sharing that this idea behind performance because, um i some I mean, ah most of the times I use the word live art because it makes it clearer that it's not, you know, it's part of the performing arts, but it's not staged. So what I'm interested in is creating this setting and then going into it without knowing what could happen. Of course, you know, I have to think what might happen and have to be prepared. But there is, especially with the interaction with the participants, and which I don't really like ah to call audience, but participants.
00:07:55
Speaker
whether than being human or non-human. So for example, in the the performance so ritual, I was living in the woods. So it was ah a part of a series of performances for the change of season. And it was for the beginning of summer. So the summer sources. And um I was invited but in in in this residency called Polinaria, which is an amazing place in the woods in a Bruzzo region in Italy. And um I started thinking about, um and I had, you know, I was asked to work with soil and with the soil methodology and I was like,
00:08:39
Speaker
okay how so the the sun and the solstice and i started thinking about all these ritualistic ways of ah dealing with this with the change of season so there there is a lot of knowledge that we're losing about traditional ways of ah celebrating the change of seasons, which might help contemporary people very much as well, because we're still part of da of this universe. And ah I believe we need to come back to this idea of being part of a bigger network and ecosystem.
00:09:19
Speaker
So, so ritual was this, I was in the woods basically without a watch, without speaking for three days. And the participants could ah join me in the woods through and a walk. It wasn't ah an hike, I wouldn't say it's ah they were hiking. It was more a walk in the woods, like three, four kilometers walking. from the starting point of the residency. and They were given this map and the map was made out of drawings.
00:09:52
Speaker
and numbers. So I made these drawings of plants. So it's also of plants or like there was a fence in the drawing and the funny thing, there is a funny thing. So um there was this field of grain and I was working with Harriet that ah is an artist but she was working at the residency at the time and we were like okay you know you get to walk through this field of grain so you cannot miss it it's huge it's massive you you just see it so we were going for this walk and trying to pinpoint i was going up and down every day walking these four kilometers to the site of the performance and i was trying to
00:10:35
Speaker
pinpoint, which might have been the the main things to see and recognize. Some like you cannot miss the the field of rain, it's big.
Non-Verbal Communication and Living Art Philosophy
00:10:46
Speaker
And then the day before the performance, we didn't even know it it was part of the, you know, the the field was part of the of the residency area. So it was it wasn't like it was someone else's property. But we hadn't thought about the fact that it was the season in which they might have cut the grain.
00:11:07
Speaker
So the day before the performance we have printed all the maps and we go there and there's no field of brain. So also this idea of working with the changes and how the so-called landscape and you know our environment changes and how we make it we interact with it it as humans, you know we're using that plans in a way. Most of the time it's used, there is not this idea of respect also towards the food we eat, the plants specifically, you know or like, you know, animals, whatever type of diet we follow.
00:11:43
Speaker
So yes, this idea of how can we start from a you know silent, but not in a way of lack of communication, but lack of human language communication. um So alternative ways of communicating, which we already do very much with our bodies, and ah create these new rituals. So I was inviting people in this area. in in this space and sharing with them what I saw that was you know very much related to the non-human because I was living there and mainly it was non-humans and you know plants, the various animals moving around me.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, really, we've we've completely lost our ability to, not our ability, our our sensitivity to what's going on in the world around us. And not only that, you I think it's it's funny. It's a funny story about you know cutting down the grain. And it's also so indicative of the fact that we're so disconnected from the seasons that we don't instinctively know, well, of course, there's not going to be grain there at that time of the year. Because at that time of the year, the grain is going to be cut, it's going to be harvest, there's going to be all this other stuff that's happening. But um where in other cultures and in other time periods, we it would have been just ah and an instinctual part of ourselves, our recognition and our comfort and and our our connection with these beings.
00:13:11
Speaker
that it would have been obvious to know, well, of course, you know, grain is not going to be there, you know, neither wheat nor amaranth or whatever it was is not going to be sitting there waiting for us at this time of year because at this time of year, they're already gone. They've already moved on to other things and to other phases of their own life. So I think that it's actually kind of ah a beautiful um example of the reason why these types of performances are so important to remind us of our, like to retrigger that connection that we're we're sort of lost.
00:13:48
Speaker
did you find How did you find that the participants reacted? like How did they interact with you? And more importantly for me, what I'm super curious is after those days in the woods, no watch, no no distractions, you're sitting there and it wasn't exactly camping. You literally had kind of, you were there, you were in it. What what was that like like? What changed in you from that realization?
00:14:14
Speaker
um Well, what stayed with me from the participants experience was that when one one thing was that some people couldn't even recognize the plants. So it's also, you know, how we're not used to look around us. And one of them was ivys and we we can also see in cities is not, you know, a plant that we don't see every day or every day or like often. um And how, you know, some people couldn't recognize a cherry tree and we do eat, like with the majority of us have cherries, you know, it's not forgiven, but it's something that most but no people in this part of the world would know. So how, you know, we have to retrain ourselves to look.
00:15:04
Speaker
and you know not out of only other people, but I have to do it myself. It's not like I'm trying to teach people what to do. It's like, how am I losing also this ability of actually looking around me and seeing? um And then something that I find always fascinating, especially with you know nonverbal interactions, is how we are losing that intimate space. And ah mainly that intimate space is seen as something that is part of a romantic relationship. Not only like, you know, a relationship with relatives, but more, you know, romantic, and which I find a pity because it it can be such a rich space to explore. And it doesn't necessarily mean there is a romantic aspect or, you know, that type of
00:15:58
Speaker
aspect. So um how people felt like they were opening up or like they were really touched by something that they were experiencing and I also think this is not only you know because I have who knows what ability in performing but it's also because after you walk for some time and you're not used to walk on a type of you know You're not on a pavement, you're not you're not on you're you're not in this human-built type of road, but you're walking and you're feeling the different textures underneath your feet, and I was asking people to walk in a silence.
00:16:39
Speaker
So it's also like, you know, you're walking and you're trying to read the environment around you. So you already arrive to the performing sites that you have changed something in your perception or in your presence. So people, I guess they were more present, especially, you know, it was summer. So it was pretty warm. It wasn't extremely hot. in You know how it could be in other cities, in the big cities, but it was warm. So there is also that idea of the body being there. you know the physical body being there differently, more aware.
00:17:13
Speaker
So yes, my experience on the other hand, it was beautiful. I didn't really want to leave. you know I felt like it wasn't enough time there. And I was sleeping in this wine barrel because the residency also has a winery. So we were like, how can we find a way to sleep there that doesn't feel like imposing a space for a human to sleep? So I had made this altar and I was like, I really feel like I want to stay longer and experience this longer. And after a few days, you know, sometimes they you know I was raised in the city and in a big city. So when I see a mouse, I'm not like,
00:17:56
Speaker
I'm very happy, you like most of us, you know, there is this, also this cultural like rejection towards mice. But I was so happy when they were walking really close to me and I could recognize their pathways. So there is also this idea, or like there was this, um so I was sleeping. So this is also interesting how I found the site, because I was walking in this, so the residency has a huge area of, you know, that is part of the residency in the woods. and I was walking there and looking for a site because I really wanted to to be outdoors and because that's usually how I work and then I find myself underneath this big oak tree and I'm like
00:18:45
Speaker
Wow, you know when you feel the energy. I didn't know anything about it. But there is a long so story behind that point. So this big oak tree has been the dividing point for centuries, dividing three different towns. And there are stories behind it. So basically there is this story and people are like, it's a story, it doesn't even feel real anymore about this man that used to live in the woods. And he used to gather water for from this
00:19:20
Speaker
um small water stream. That's where I was as well. There is near the oak tree. and And then there was this story about river crabs, which I'd never seen before. And everyone saying, you know, they got extinct. They're not there anymore. And then I actually saw them, so spending three days there, and you know sometimes I was just still, I wasn't doing any much movement, so maybe they they felt free to come out. And I was so surprised, I was like, so they're still here. So also this fact of being in a space and just being there, which I, you know, going slow.
00:20:08
Speaker
without much need to do anything else. and I think it's something that stayed with me and I wish I could allow myself to do more even on my daily life. Yeah, that whole allow ourselves is such an important perspective. And I love how how it's almost like the creatures of the forest, the beings of the forest, they show themselves to us. They be they become, um it's interesting because you think that after time we tend to have this false impression that our eyes sort of start to blend everything together, but it's opposite, right? As the longer we're there,
00:20:49
Speaker
The sharper everything comes into focus, the more clearly you can see the individualization. you know you You can see all the little tiny details, and you start to recognize all of the the differences around you, and including, like you said, the different beings that are around you that probably were there all along in some way, and we just weren't able to recognize them because our sensitivity has been dulled. over of by by neglect really because it's it's nothing biological or physiological.
Exploring Alternative Ways of Living Through Art
00:21:22
Speaker
It's completely neglect. We we we don't allow ourselves to do that and I think that that's really powerful for performances like this to remind us
00:21:32
Speaker
that's you know for you yourself, but also in the participants that come to experience this type of performance. it's It's almost like an accelerated way for you to say, hey, there's a different way for you to live. right There's a different way for you to do things. and and to give yourself a little bit um of permission because not everybody feels so brave to be able to do that. um they don't They don't have the courage anymore to kind of go off and spend three days in the woods in that same way, but I think by by peeking into it it, it opens you to the possibilities that m maybe maybe I could do something. Maybe it's not exactly go three days in the woods, but maybe it's finding a sit spot
00:22:13
Speaker
near where I live or like you said I can slow down for I don't know an hour a day or or even an hour a week and I can just sit there and start to observe and see these types of things which is an extremely and big connection with with plants with animals with nature in general with with my own nature inside of me it's like almost I feel when I sit there that at some point almost like the I don't want to say my humanness, but my human protectiveness fades away, and all of a sudden I feel much more open to allowing all the different parts of myself, my humanness, my animalness, my plantness, to allowing them to to come out, but in a way that feels like there's not these dividers between them, but more of this flow that happens.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yes definitely and what you're saying speaks to me because I don't see myself you know I like the idea of live arts and performance art because I feel like in a way I'm a participant as well you know I'm facilitating this experience but I'm participating so it's a collective experience and I think before performing and you know creating the performance I think what I would like to see and experience and I sort of and give myself a pep talk in a way and be like okay but I can start doing this and maybe other people wouldn't feel like putting themselves in similar situations but I'm happy to do it as a way of you know
00:23:54
Speaker
making it possible to do alternative, you know, to perceive reality and what we live and what goes through us in alternative ways. So I definitely see myself more, ah you know, I see the the role of the performance artist as a facilitator. I totally see that. i mean As a person who loves art, I go to as much as many art events that as an and ah art experiences as possible from you know and in any setting I can get to. And one of the things I do love is performance art and installation art, things that are i mean things that really push the envelope of the way that I think.
00:24:36
Speaker
um And I and I do think that a lot of that is already the fact that you can conceive that is already the collaboration you have with nature with with other kin because it's I find especially that that collaboration, it's almost like it starts to open the door to the unusual to the to the non codified in the human language or the human paradigm type of thing, that it's almost like those whispers and that collaboration that comes when you spend a lot of time with nature. So I'm sure that that experience even triggered ideas for new experiences. What what other types of projects do you feel like have been a continuation of that kind of work?
00:25:25
Speaker
Well, I guess every performance sort of stays with me and triggers other ideas, but definitely it sort of remarks this need of doing durational performances because I really feel that and submerging yourself in a intense situation for a for long time ah definitely shifts perceptive ways of seeing and makes me as a facilitator
00:26:01
Speaker
more able to open gates for participants, other participants, to then experience something similar. So if I'm completely there, it means, you know, sometimes I feel like losing my mind after a few days, because of course I don't speak, I don't have a watch, I have to understand how time passes without any type of device that I might have around me, like a watch, you know, my laptop. and I can check the time of my laptop. So, um maybe like something that came out, as I was telling you, is also this performance called Oracolo, so the oracle, and this idea of um new rituals. But I don't really like too much the word, you know, it's more like, you know,
00:26:53
Speaker
I don't know, I have to get my head around what word works best without, that is not new because it feels like, you know, we always create everything from something that is already there. So it's so more more like a remodeling of something, but this idea of contemporary rituals. So and some like, you know, capitalist societies has demonized this idea of rituals. And I feel like we so much need it. And in a way, we are um already in touch with types of rituals, even though we might not call them like that, you know, whatever type of ceremony that is related to religion most of the times has been stolen from other ritualistic cultures.
00:27:41
Speaker
So this idea of creating new rituals, but also finding, so for example, in the in the performance, Soracolo is how can we look at our environment, but also like, you know, ask a question and finding an answer. So I'm like, you know, again, I'm this facilitator putting people in in this situation where they have to pick a card and then the card is related to a movement or something else that we might do together. And every card is related to a planet. And so the movement of the planet and in a plant, so there is a card that is related to rosemary. And again, how some plants, for example, basil are thought to um be able to stimulate memory. So how can we actually come back to these things that feel like, you know, just talks and how can we experience them again to our subjective experience?
00:28:41
Speaker
So again, I'm facilitating this process. So it's like, is the participant picking the cards? So it's them choosing in a way, but without their rational mind, because they're not seeing what's underneath the card. So again, it's like, I'm not giving them any type of straightforward response but it's more like okay let's look in a playful way at what happens around us in order that also to be more conscious of what type of answer we might give inside us. So it's it's you know I see performance as a playful way of of living and how you know
00:29:21
Speaker
something I really feel like, you know, we should all be more playful in our daily lives in general beyond, you know, performance, I don't see performance as something um separated from daily life. On the contrary, it's very much, you know, there is no way of faking it because I couldn't fake, you know, after being days in a very intense situation, I'm not able to fake anything. And that's maybe what I like. Oh my goodness, there is just so much here I want to impact. But first, I want to share a message from one of our eco-conscious business partners.
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:31:15
Speaker
So Yeah, I can totally see that. I mean, I think you touched on a lot of topics there that that I think, especially, um they fit into the Doman Hurrian philosophy of play, for example, as the way we experiment. And I mean, this is what we see in nature, right? We see it from animal, um whether it's wolf cubs that are you know, playing our fox cubs that are playing around together and they're playing in order for them to understand their strength and and the boundaries and for them to
00:31:47
Speaker
kind of interacted, so play in in the natural world. We see it even with sunflowers, where as they're coming up, they're all moving in these ways, interacting one with the other. They're they're literally kind of playing with one another, again, to socialize, to understand boundaries, to see you know how the space moves, to learn, to stretch yourself. I mean, the idea of play which has been pretty much lost in most of our human society, other than children are allowed to play. You're allowed to play organized sports, but the idea of just general, let me get together and play around, we we almost we almost call it, we dismiss it. Like, oh, that's you know this thing you do when you don't want to be an adult or when you don't want to, whatever.
00:32:35
Speaker
When in reality, play is such an important aspect of our society at Dom & Her, we use play actively in so many different um scenarios so that we can grow and stretch and do it in a way that is safe. Because the other thing about playing is that You might fall down and scrape your knee. You might get an answer wrong in a game. And all of that is fine because that's how we learn too, right? We learn even through making our mistakes. So by creating that energy of play, it also gives us a permission to
00:33:09
Speaker
To try things outside of our norm even if they won't work and to learn from the way they work and the way that they don't work also and i think that when you're talking about a relationship like interspecies relationships this play becomes even more important because. Other species, you see them interacting you know between the species, where we as humans might do it with a domesticated dog or a domesticated cat, but we don't really give ourselves permission to play with other you know other kinds of species, with other plants and animals in a way that helps us you know get all that benefit out of it. and and so I think that something like that, any kind of performance that encourages you to
00:33:54
Speaker
to play, to risk, to, you know, to dare to do it, to Osare, you know, to like move in those directions could be extremely powerful to again, give us permission to do things that we don't allow ourselves to do in day to day life. Yes, and I also think, you know, it's beautiful the example of the sunflower. Because, you know, different plants have different ways and times of moving and let's say growing, you know, changing. And also how, I believe this is a
00:34:30
Speaker
beautiful teaching that we we can embrace as humans on how we we're all different. And it's not just, you know, a way of saying we all have different times. um For example, you know, some friends of mine really like to joke about the fact that I am and slow. and It's not slow. It's not that I do like doing doing things slowly. um And I'm like, why not? You know, we we cherish the fact that they might really like to go fast and I really like like to go slow. It's not an issue. It's more like we're different and plants on these are amazing teachers. And, you know, the the fact of, you know, the sunflower all almost feels playful, you know, this idea of moving.
00:35:16
Speaker
and following the sun, it feels very playful know from from my perspective. or you know feels like ok ok Their movement is much faster than other plants. you know It feels like they never move. and' like You look at them for years and they're very slow. at changing in the way of growing, but then maybe they're stronger, you know, that they have stronger
Interspecies Communication and Indigenous Knowledge
00:35:38
Speaker
roots. So also this idea of cherishing the difference and ah also respecting different ways of being starting from our ways of being. And I guess this multi-species way of living can really give new insights on
00:35:59
Speaker
on human experience. Yeah. and And that always goes back to, I mean, relation to plants, it goes back to also that that observation, that giving yourself permission to observe, that that being present, which is a ah part of your plantness, of your of your inner plantness that I think is so important, that that plants really help us embody is that slowness doesn't mean stillness, and it also doesn't mean not playfulness and seriousness. Like I have a diplodenia, which is you know the rock trumpet. I have a plant that's growing up high, and I created these chains that go up to the wall up to the roof i mean up to the roof up to the ceiling so that the plant so that this plant can can grow and move. Key is hysterical to me during the day because the way that you know every time I look up, the
00:36:51
Speaker
the vines are in different locations. I can see that there's this experimentation with how do I hook into this this chain that you've created. And I keep telling, I said, you have all that area, all I ask you is do not go to the cart curtains. So I looked up and there's like a vine that's near the curtain and I'm always looking at Diplindenia and I'm going, no, no curtain. And an hour later, I look up and the the vines going in another direction. And it's like, you know, like the child, like the mother and the child going, no, don't do that. And then he is like, fine, I'm not going to be moving, you know, I'm moving into another direction. And it really feels like this playful game that we're having where I'm giving you space to explore.
00:37:38
Speaker
you're teaching me movement and and that how you play through this and yet there's rules you know there's there's some boundaries and I'm like this area is yours but not that and I really find that for me it's changed the way that you know I experience. I love all the plants that live with me for exactly that. I get to see all their minute changes and their minute differences. And there is a rituality. I think going back to what you were talking about with the Oracolo, I think we we don't recognize you know our our ritual aspects.
00:38:16
Speaker
call them habits in some cases, because we don't give them the sacredness that they deserve. And so I think that anything that brings that back, we in Dom and her have the way of the Oracle and the way of the Oracle is, for us, a modern day Oracle connected to divine forces. And this modern day Oracle, you know, on a regular basis, the people that are part of this way, connect into the divine forces, and they they have a whole series of rituality that they carry out, both as propitiation of helping and being in service to the divine forces, and at the same time collaborating with the divine sources to bring information and knowledge and movement down into the human sphere.
00:39:06
Speaker
that that concludes every month with the the ritual the of the Oracle, which is the full moon ritual that we carry out here publicly. And it's it's fascinating. I'm not in the way of the Oracle. I am a knight, so I am in the way of the knights. But it is fascinating to me to watch this um connection to the divine forces and that has created this rituality that that we carry out and then it's helped us see the rituality that because how it gets carried out across all of the different aspects of our lives and I do think that with other kin we have the possibility of creating a rituality that is different than what we do for ourselves right like you said it's based on
00:39:49
Speaker
meanings and interpretations but then also on relationship in different ways. And I find that what happens is, you know, many people start with the idea of generic generic ah common definitions or understandings of plants, for example. And then once you get to know a specific plant of that, you know, species, you start to see the unique pieces that that plant embodies. And then I can take that and I can be like, oh, I move this over here. And I can see now how that relates to many different things in my life where I've given them a generic meaning.
00:40:26
Speaker
but I have to remember that there is that each individual is an individual and that I create both generic rituals that carry out um an overall idea or process or stereotype, for lack of a better word, although that usually has a negative connotation. And then I have personalized rituals that are with how how I interact specifically with another being or another incarnation of that. I don't know if that was clear, but it's like in my mind, it makes sense that it gives that again, it helps us see it outside and, and just the same as we say, community are so important. The mirrors are so important because when I watch something, I can just imagine myself watching even just looking through your
00:41:18
Speaker
Instagram and looking through your website as I saw some of the different pieces and the little videos and such it helped as a mirror I could feel things resonating in me and being like oh I want to look deeper into that because that's resonating and and this over here is scary well what does that mean for me and wow this over here opened a dialogue to something I had never even imagined and I think that I when it comes to other kin, this is the power of the performance space, right? Like you said, that live art, and art in general, but especially live art, is that it gives us opportunities to find what's safe for us now, what's not understood, what I never imagined. How do I interact with that in different ways?
00:42:06
Speaker
Yes and also well I have so many thoughts now from what you were saying but um well definitely especially with plants you know it's beautiful how if you have the same species of plant as you were saying then every specific plant it's it's an individual And how can we learn from that again? It's like, you know, how can we change our perspective be beyond going, I mean, going beyond this binary vision of something that is playful, then is lack of sort responsibility and how can it can actually be both and it can be in new ways in a third and fourth, fifth way of seeing and perceiving that is not binary. So I guess also these, you know, being
00:42:59
Speaker
ah aware of non-human and kin, so you know, kids that are other from the ones that we are, we will usually call kids in, you know, or maybe not usually, because and a lot of people are changing their perspective on this, which is wonderful. And, you know, it's encouraging towards what we're both doing. um So yes, I think it's, you know, also this idea of ah finding, giving us permission to find sacredness in daily rituals and habits it's not you know something can be sacred even you know having a cup of coffee can be a sacred ritual it doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't be maybe there is this idea of sacredness as being something detached or there is something formal so how can we come back to making it
00:43:52
Speaker
um ah something that we feel is around. So how can it be something that we we are we feel comfortable doing? Yeah, I like that you said that that sacredness doesn't have to be formal. I do think it's a completely different thing. I mean, yes, it can be, but it also can be very either easy, it can even be playful. I wake up every morning and right to the right of me is peace lily is a peace lily that lives with me and peace lily is my morning ritual from the perspective of the first thing i pretty much see when i open my eyes and i say good morning to and to me it is a sacred ritual of the way we interact in the morning there is a very conscious over time has become a very conscious um um awareness of the fact that kia is the first
00:44:46
Speaker
you know, person that I say hello to every single morning, regardless of what's going on around me. And, you know, Kia is the first person I say hello to, and not just say hello to, I listen, like I, and there are other plants that live with me. And, you know, there's other beings in the house, but the first person that I feel the need to interact with in the morning is peace, Lily, and to sit and listen for a second. So it reminds me not to just jump out of bed, but to give peacefully a chance to respond back to me and tell me, you know, how are you and get that interaction. And that always just starts the day different. I mean, and then of course, there's all kinds of rituals from sitting with my tea to, you know, different things that I do in my own self care and all of these different rituals. But I think it's important for us to recognize that we're not the only ones involved in the ritual.
00:45:37
Speaker
Formal, formal rituals, like you said, can have, you know, divine forces and they can have all this. But even in formal ones is that, you know, rituals in and of themselves are interspecies.
00:45:51
Speaker
Yes. And I believe we lost this a bit with, you know, a bit a lot with capitalism um or, you know, in the the structure that capitalism has given to daily lives of the majority of, you know, people in the West. um And, you know, we talk a lot, you know, there is a lot of talk around indigenous knowledge on plants, and that I've been thinking, you know, also like talking to my granddad, and that is 90, I'm like,
00:46:22
Speaker
he has so much indigenous knowledge without the need of going to another continent. There is already indigenous knowledge so deeply rooted in our culture in Italy, for example, you know in Europe or in general, that is there is no need of cultural appropriation from anyone else. But it's like, how can we go back to that and not lose it? Because of course it gets lost. For example, I've been interviewing people that are working with drawing food in their gardens related to the the moon phases. So again, that is a sort of ritual, how can we be in in the rhythm you know in the in the rhythm of the universe without trying to get away from it, but allowing ourself, you know, the the new moon, you know, the new moon is going to be in a couple of days, in like for days it but you know, it's in in in a few days. A few days, yes.
00:47:14
Speaker
And, you know, how do we train ourselves to notice the the change of energy? That it doesn't need to be something that is spiritualistic or new age or something that feels like, you know, with negative connotations, but it's just how our body changes, you know. And also this idea of um ah going back to being aware of plants around us and what you were saying with your tea and sitting with your tea is also the idea of intuitive eating and what plants speak to me in a specific moment or like in a specific week and or like month and how that changes because we are changing together or like in the present of some plants for example you know you know there are some plants that are used in some
00:48:12
Speaker
phytotherapic method d that are related to being calmer and how when you are, for example, with, how is it called in English, ah birch. Birches are like very much related, you know, so with some type of remedies that like, you know, they they keep you grounded or like, you know, more present. And how like I've noticed myself, when I go in, ah you know, I was in Finland for some time, and I was surrounded by birches. And I was like, how is my body changing? Because in this environment, there is so much of this plant, this tree. So also being aware of
00:48:55
Speaker
how the how the the plants around us are changing our you know how the the movement of our fluids in our bodies of of our thoughts and is not something what what I find a pity is that there is still this ah negative idea of you know being new age or hippie about being connected to plants and rituals, but it's something so present in our lives that we're not recognizing, but it's going on, even if we don't see it, it's actually going on. So being aware of all these phases and cycles would just make human lives much easier. So it's how can, of course, going away from an anthropocentric perspective, but still how this being in um
00:49:52
Speaker
multi-species, inter-species awareness would actually benefit, like be be know but be beneficial from you for humans as
Human-Nature Interactions and Future Projects
00:50:03
Speaker
well. you're You're touching on all the elements that I love so much because i do we have forgotten that we are nature. And so then, of course, we are part of those cycles, we are part of those rhythms, and we resonate, like you said, with the beings around us. We adapt to our environment. So it makes sense that when you're in a field, we're living immersed with a bunch of birches, you act very differently than when you are immersed in, you know, an oak grove. Our bodies react differently because
00:50:33
Speaker
we are part of that natural environment. And the environment is constantly being created by the elements that are there and the elements that are there are constantly creating the environment. It's this synergistic response that comes back and forth. And so like you said, it's, it's fundamental for us to find our point of happiness and our point of of calm and our point of of resilience and adaptability for us to re-recognize, to reawaken.
00:51:06
Speaker
to the fact that we are nature. And and and i love that i love doing I love working with plants on this because I find that plants are, because their presence, and because there is a sense of calm already, it almost and the sense of protection, of being around in a protected space, and the nourishment that comes. like I find I have a ah little balcony, and im I love looking around at who is arriving in this balcony. Right now, I have wood sorrels that just arrived. And I love that they're just spontaneously growing. And I'm like, oh, this is what I need to eat right now. Where last, you know, last year, I remember when I recognized that purse lane was growing.
00:51:49
Speaker
And all of a sudden, I had all this purslane who's not there now. Nothing has changed in the balcony, right? But purslane is not what my body needs right now or not what we need in this area. I just did an episode where I have this ah spirit wild plant like quiz, a quiz to help you identify what's your spirit wild plant in this moment. And for a while, cattail was coming in really strong for people. Lots of people were getting cattail. of the participants. And now it's chickweed. And it really feels like chickweed is trying to tell us, hey, this is what we need. Like right now, I want to give you these characteristics. It's a great episode to to kind of get a better understanding because it took me a while to realize it. And so I love that you're talking about how
00:52:34
Speaker
that immersion that happens. And again, going back to the performance, the performance gives us a glimpse into what's possible. It helps us expand our minds to what it means or to observe it and feel what resonates in me. And then at the same time, it also gives me permission to say, oh, if somebody else is doing it, then I can do it. And this is why I feel like these this work that you're doing is so important for us to be able to see that. I have a feeling that we could talk forever like and ever and ever because I didn't even get to the original way I found you was through this project you have flower bodies which I'm going to link anyway because I think it's really beautiful and this other one plant trafficking that I thought was so ingenious and so creative in the way that you worked on this
00:53:20
Speaker
And so I'm going to make sure I link to you know your social media and to your website so that people can find you and can see when you're doing you know new live art and moving on and so they can maybe participate in some of them. But what what where for you is the horizon in the future? So tell us tell us where you're going. what's What's the next horizon for you? so well i'm I'm trying you know to create this methodology, as I've said, to collaborate with non-human through the like this idea of seeing the garden as the artist studio. So what I'm doing in the close future is that I'm doing this PhD research on, that is a very practical artistic research on
00:54:16
Speaker
um on this idea of creating a methodology for human and human collaboration through somatic practices of live art. And so there will be more shared on this, of course, also where at the end of the of the doctoral studies, but also through the the whole process. But then what I'm doing, I'm also ah finally, because it's something I've been researching for some time, um making this ah performance in Prague next year on plants and sleep. So what's the dialogue of between plants and sleep? So we go through similar,
00:55:00
Speaker
rhythms. And there is a dialogue, of course, the plants that what the maybe most known plant is chamomile, you get some chamomile firstly, but of course, there are so many more for for me, like it works best with passive flora, it's, you know, it's, again, it's very personal. um So there is going to be a collective ritual on um how to find ways of sleeping with plants in a way and how we die when there is a dialogue so how the human body affects the plant and you know being close to a plant while sleeping um so that will have the next year and I don't know maybe flower bodies which will continue you know it's this illustration series what you mentioned before
00:55:46
Speaker
ah where I'm sharing how I actually see the plant because it's that's you know that there was very there is a personal way of how I perceive specific plants or ah my imagination runs wild when seeing the plant maybe so I guess they will continue you know being new plants that I will draw as part of that illustration. Fantastic. I love it. I love it all. I will make sure that I include everything about what you just talked about in the show notes so that people can you know find your Instagram and they can find your website and they can see where it is that you're going to be.
00:56:25
Speaker
Thank you so much, Julia. This has been really an amazing conversation. and i I'm sure I'm going to bring you back in the future when we can hear about some of more of these projects. Because i again, I say, I think that as as this plant reawakening is happening, you said that there's a lot more people, you said it earlier, that a lot more people that are starting to really feel this connection, that are starting to recognize that this is an important aspect of their lives. And I think we need many different ways of showing them. And at the same time, I feel that the work that you do is again, remembering, helping us remember that plants are are people too, that that all of the the beings that you work with are people too. And these persons want to be a part of these performances. They also are creative and playful and joyful beings that want to share the space with us. And I love that there is more and more
00:57:18
Speaker
you know, movement in this direction. And the fact that it is movement, like I think it is somatic based because it gets us out of our words, it gets us out of our thoughts, and and it helps us create a new paradigm based on these interactions that are happening without having to define it too early. So I really love what you're doing. And thank you so much for sharing it with us here. Well, thank you for having me. And I look forward to have new chats together in the future. Wonderful. Tell me you didn't love that as much as I did. Wasn't that an amazing conversation with Julia? I love the art that she's creating. I love the interspeciesness aspect of it. And more than anything, I love the fact that she is looking at other kin, whether it's plants or animals or any of the other species and you know physical and non-physical around her.
00:58:11
Speaker
to really as as collaborators as part of what is coming out. I absolutely love this. I've been posting more about performance art and you've also been seeing in the plant consciousness commentary that I've been doing, um especially in the naturally conscious community. I mean, the naturally conscious community is really the place to have these types of conversations. And we are in the middle also of a big project as a community of those of us that are part of the writing group as well as in the book club. We're rewriting we're rewriting a modern myth. And this is very connected to what, you know, Julia is doing. So Julia is doing it through somatic live art, but we have another aspect that we're doing it in the per in the a concept of how it is that we're using ah mythology for this and this. And so these are the reasons why we want you in the naturally conscious community, we want you in
00:59:03
Speaker
you know, blooming sprouts and in seedling sprouts, so that you can participate in these conversations. So head on over there, the links are all in the show notes, and I'm looking forward to seeing you next week for our next episode. Remember, resist the urge to hold back your emerging green brilliance. This is me, Tigria Gardenia, I'm out. Thanks for listening to this episode of Reconnect with Plant Wisdom. Intro and outro music by Steve Schulie and Poinsettia from the Singing Life of Plants. So join me, Tigirila Gardenia, and my plant collaborators next time on Reconnect with Plant Wisdom.