At the Edge of the Forest: Christina Zampoulaki and Adrianna Szojda

Adrianna Szojda and Christina Zampoulaki are SAiR Project artists-in-residence, exploring sustainable art practices at MGLC Švicarija in the January–March 2025 period.

They are inviting to a participatory community event at the edge of and in the forest of Tivoli Park on Wednesday, 19 March, 2025 at 15.00, meeting point in front of MGLC Švicarija. The event will end at 6 p.m. at the latest. In case of bad weather, the event will take place inside Švicarija. Free admission; compulsory prior registration at trgovina@mglc-lj.si. You can bring your happiness helpers – pet dogs!

ADRIANNA SZOJDA: IN-BETWEEN SOIL AND DEBRIS

Adrianna Szojda (1989, Poland) is a researcher, eco-farmer and cultural mediator who works mainly at the intersection of art, education and agroecology. “In-between soil and debris: regenerative practices and methodologies with and for the damaged world”, a project within the SAiR programme, mutates and transforms depending on the place where it is developed but always seeks to do the same: trace regenerative practices that already exist within the community, understanding each community as a set of dynamic interspecies relations. The questions that constantly accompany the artist are: How to strengthen the resilience of our community in the face of the eco-social crisis? How can the more-than-human beings, including soil and plants, guide us towards multiple, more diverse and inclusive futures? 
Soils of each place are crucial in her research simply because, as Vandana Shiva says, "the future lies in the handful of soil". Although humanity has been aware of that for many centuries, the Anthropocene exploits, mutilates and depletes the earth relentlessly.

On 19 March, the artist would like to invite you to send a message from soil to soil. During her residency at MGLC, she prepared some screen prints on compostable paper made from the introduced plant Fallopia japonica with the soil from the forest and a local organic farm. You will have a chance to write on them with plant-based ink and send them to other soils by simply burying them. While they decompose, they will free both your message and the memory of the regenerative potential of the healthy common land, in which lies our shared future.

CHRISTINA ZAMPOULAKI: AFTER DINNER

Christina Zampoulaki is a Greek-American artist, working predominantly in sculpture, installation and video art. Her practice depends on the “each other”; on the premise that the materials that build our world are alive and our bodies work with theirs. She explores the interconnectedness of living organisms, focusing on food systems and the supply chains within Western capitalist structure. Christina sees food as both a political tool and a living ecosystem that shapes our identities and reflects global systems of power. Her work has no permanence, there is nothing to store or preserve. Her installations are designed to be eaten by people and then live with them as embodied memories and knowledge of what they tasted or felt.

During her time on SAiR, Christina has focused on After Dinner, a research and event-based project investigating our personal and communal notions of domestic food waste and its usages as material in bioplastics. Inspired by the natural environment around Tivoli Park, she has been exploring the (after)life of food by creating an imagined mythological reality of it. Christina invites participants to join her in a feast of forgotten life forms, from bio-leather to new species.

The event is organised as part of the Sustainability is in the AiR (SAiR) project, which connects residential centres in Ljubljana (MGLC Švicarija), Prague (MeetFactory), Madrid (Matadero) and Athens (Snehta). The project fosters sustainable artistic practices through residential exchanges.

Organised upon the International Day of Forests (21 March). The International Day of Forests is marked every year on the initiative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); in 2025, the theme of the day is “Forests and Food”.