PAV – Parco Arte Vivente in Turin hosts Forest | Experimenting, a workshop by Mali Weil on the forest conceived as a space historically irreconcilable with the city but, at the same time, complementary to it. The forest becomes a place to rethink what it means to be a citizen and, consequently, the very concept of citizenship itself. “The forest – says Mali Weil – represents an incredible source of political relations. For millennia it has been the working ground where the relationship with otherness is constructed”.
Forests | Experimenting is an act of “forestation” of everyday life opening the way to other possible worlds. Worlds where the word citizenship has a different meaning and substance than in the “world currently inhabited”. “Our present world is surrounded by an infinity of other possible worlds”, writes Lubomir Dolezel in Heterocosmica.
The forest becomes the space-object of ongoing research, where a process of de-familiarisation is taking place, revealing the magical-linguistic principle which subjects us to notions such as human, institution, nature and citizenship. Combining performative language with the theoretical tools of epistemology and speculative design, Mali Weil invites visitors to participate in the actions by exploring this research space, whose boundaries coincide with the historical and geographical limits of Western political imagination. The workshop, divided into two days, is an experiment to establish areas of political action through linguistic and narrative tools.
FORESTS / EXPERIMENTING, workshop curated by Mali Weil, PAV – Laboratorio del Vivente, Turin, Italy, 07 – 08.02.2020
Action 1 1 – Friday, February 7, 2020, 6p.m.
Action 2, Saturday February 8, 2020, 8 p.m.
The work is also articulated through several workshop sessions with students from the middle school IC Sinigaglia – Succ. Ada Negri in Turin, who will be the protagonists of the action on 8 February 2020.
Forests | Experimenting is the third part of a forestation process, preceded by Forests | Recomposing, a lecture at the Trento Film Festival in April, and Forests | Unlearning, a performance presented at the SAAL Biennial International Performing Arts Festival (Tallinn, EE) in August.In addition to the performance, Forests also includes a film and an open school operating temporarily and by invitation.The research is conducted in partnership with Centrale Fies, Compagnia di San Paolo and curated by Mali Weil.
