CONVIVIUM ponders how meaning is created in relationships: with other people and with the nature that sustains us
At the turn of July and August, the performance CONVIVIUM will take place at Hailuoto, created by the movement artist Eija Ranta and the architect and chef Tammaro Chiacchio. The performance begins with a guided forest walk and ends with a shared meal made from local, seasonal ingredients and wild herbs. CONVIVIUM is part of the Oulu26 Capital of Culture programme.
CONVIVIUM ponders how meaning is created in relationships: with other people and with the nature that sustains us. A shared meal is a moment of encounter between people and with the surrounding nature.
Eija is a native islander and returns to the island in the summer with her husband Tammaro and their two children.
Eija, You you live with your family in Italy, but you spend your summers in Hailuoto. What in the island calls you back?
“Hailuoto feels like home. As I get older, the importance of my roots has become stronger. I was born and lived here my childhood and youth, when I lived abroad I visited here for shorter and longer periods on vacation. The light and nature here are things that I enjoy year after year and that I appreciate immensely. There is nature everywhere in the world, but here nature is more familiar and closer.”
Tammaro, what is your relationship with Hailuoto?
“I feel a strong connection to Hailuoto because it is a place where I have experienced the greatness of life, nature and the power of renewal.
My life before meeting Eija was very different. I lived in Rome, where I still have an apartment and where I continue to work as an architect, specializing in museum installations and events. I met Eija during my trip to Helsinki and soon after I got to know Hailuoto.”
What inspired you to make this show?
Eija:
“The concept of participatory performance has been a central part of my practice for a long time. In recent years, I have been interested in the performativity of walking. Convivium is a continuation of the previous work “Wavelength” which was performed in the summer of 2019 here in Hailuoto as part of the Hailuoto Theatre Festival. In it, I worked with sound artist and musician Alex Story. The work was based on the soundscape that the participants listened to through headphones while walking. After the work, I wanted to continue exploring the theme of walking, and that is where the idea for creating this work came from.”
Tammaro:
“Walking in the fields, walking in the forest, breathing it, listening to it, observing it, touching it, even tasting it is what we propose with this work. All of it is simple, because we are made of the same elements; but difficult, because we no longer experience them from within and as an integral part of them, but as bystanders, or worse, as exploiters. The nature that created us must be respected, just as we should respect ourselves and each other.”
What interests you about walking, Eija?
“Many things! Walking is one of the oldest human activities, and its meaning has changed radically throughout history. Originally, walking was purely functional, its meaning was completely tied to survival. Even when my parents were born, walking was a way to get from one place to another. It is no longer necessary in the same way, and we would not have time to cover our journeys on foot, because in our daily lives we cover distances that would have taken days before. For modern people, walking is a conscious choice, a form of exercise, even a luxury.
When we walk in the forest, we also participate in the existence of forest roads and trails. Small paths are often created by animals, and people also use them when they are walking. Forest roads grow over if no one walks them. So a path is always a continuous act of some community, people and animals.
For us Finns, walking in the forest is mundane thing but for example, in Italy you cannot walk freely anywhere, because you need the permission of the landowner. Fortunately, there are areas there too, for example owned by municipalities, where you can walk freely, you just have to know where they are. In this way, walking always reveals something about how society has organized its relationship with the land: to whom it is open, to whom it is closed, and what it requires.”
What is your relationship with food in the context of this performance?
Eija:
“In our daily lives, eating and dining are very important. We think about what to eat, when to eat, and when we eat, we already think about what to eat next. Eating together is about sharing, presence, and care. Cooking for someone else is an altruistic act and beautiful in all its mundaneness. This gesture of care is also one of the ideas at the heart of the work.”
Tammaro:
“I am Italian, and for me food is one of the most important parts of life. I was born in a small village in Italy and grew up surrounded by nature. My dear grandmother – a woman shaped by the hardships of war, poverty and the loneliness of a widow – raised me in my early years. She was a special person who, with her perseverance and the immense knowledge she had inherited from generations of farmers and shepherds, managed to survive with the strength of her own hands and to take care of nature with tenderness.
She was a person who, when she went for a walk, always knew exactly what she was stepping on, and she did so with a respect that I no longer meet. I remember her hands: strong and gentle, covered in soil, carrying the scent of numerous different herbs. I remember her apron, in whose pockets there was always something interesting that inevitably ended up on our plates.
Every day, without realizing it, we trample on an ecosystem of which we are also creatures. It is a different thing to use consciously respecting nature rather than believing that by modifying the ecosystem we can harness it to better serve our goals, whose environmental impacts have become unmanageable.
I remember when we were children, picking fruit from the trees and always leaving something for our little animal friends.
We are not alone.”
Performance dates and times:
31.7. 6 pm
1.8. 6 pm
2.8. 12 pm
7.8. 6 pm
8.8. 6 pm
9.8. 12 pm
Ticket sale:
https://biletti.fi/e/convivium-hailuoto
