The Perfect Union
Every year in the coldest weeks of the winter season, strange sculptures begin to appear in the fields all over the island. It is the moment for grafting.
Wild olive trees grow throughout the island and they produce perfectly tiny olives with a thin and bitter skin. However, though the oil from wild olives is supposedly superior to that of domesticated varieties, the yield is much, much lower. And so the grafting game begins. Wild olive trees grow throughout the island and they produce perfectly tiny olives with a thin and bitter skin. However, though the oil from wild olives is supposedly superior to that of domesticated varieties, the yield is much, much lower. And so the grafting game begins.
Bucolic Appointment
in collaboration with P.A.M. (Perks and Mini)
and CP Basalti
Bucolic Appointment is a multimedia exploration of travel, culture and humanity by Shauna Toohey and Misha Hollenbach of P.A.M. (Perks and Mini). While visiting the island with their two children, they recorded the voices, sounds and natural phenomena they encountered, eventually mixing these sounds into a 30 minute aural experience with the assistance of music producer Rohan Bell-Towers. The soundtrack is presented alongside two original collages, “Comforts of Compatibility” & “Is Canis, Is Cosas, Is Zinzus, Is Pinnas”, made from photographs taken during the trip.
"Is Canis, Is Cosas, Is Zinzus, Is Pinnas" (left) refers to that particular naming of southwestern Sardinian towns, while "Comforts of Capability" (right) overlaps a typical Carnevale mask from Oristano with a ritual Easter bread. Both are pigment prints on Fotospeed Metallic Paper, 594mm x 841mm, series of 9 per design.
Both of these projects combine natural elements with a strong human presence, as well as conventionally beautiful sounds and images with more mundane details. This contrast creates a profoundly honest reflection of the island, and of our place within it and the world.
"We Are Thinking of Going to the Island. Also I Have To Help Rebuild Your Fence." is half of a boulder of the local basalt stone with a QR code carved into its face. The stone is set on an iron base.
Accompanying these works is a sculpture, “We Are Thinking of Going to the Island. Also I Have To Help Rebuild Your Fence,” made in collaboration with artisans CP Basalti, stone masons specialized in the local basalt stone. This sculpture presents once again the contrast between the intensely natural side of the stone (formed through millennia) and the intervention of the cut. Inscribed in the face of the rock is a QR code, a fully contemporary symbol that is used almost exclusively on objects that will deteriorate in time. Here, as in so many ancient stelai, the code - which leads to the link of the soundtrack - becomes a clue left for future populations.
