AD-Lab NABA: critical methods in visual thinking and creative research.
Saturday July 6th 2024 by Peter Thomas LangThe project CULT(ivate) began as a simple concept: how can we draw connections between a popular understanding of the natural world and recent scientific developments in the natural sciences. There is some urgency behind this question, climate change is having a fundamental impact on the way we as humans perceive and live the environment, and as a result, how can we become better informed about the challenges we will face in these coming years?
As many of us are coming to realize, climate change, and the impact it will have on our daily lives, is not something to postpone for some distant future. Rather this is a phenomenon we need to deal with right now. In the master’s level course “AD-Lab” here at NABA in Rome, we were given the opportunity to work with the CNR in Montelibretti and we quickly chose to approach the Biosystems center, in the hope of getting a closer look at the science that focuses on plant growth, and plant habitats. How will society be able to maintain the kind of natural resources necessary so that Earth’s population could hopefully continue living healthy and satisfactory lives? Or will the greater global society succumb under the duress of a rapidly changing environment, failing to act when there were still sufficient opportunities to do so? Given the complexity of the challenge, the NABA based AD-Lab collective formed CULT(ivate), with the aspiration of working through these tough challenges, homing in and targeting specific strategies related to a regional biome.
Fortunately, most of the answers we are seeking are not out of our reach, and many solutions to living in a transforming environment, unsurprisingly, have been around for a very long time. One of the scientists at the Biosystems center, and our principal interlocutor for this project, Giulia Cappelli, made it very clear that to expand our understanding of the plant world, it helps to look every once and a while back at our forebearers and their more hands-on culture. She told us about the plant called the Asplenium ceterach, the name given to the species by the renown Carl Linnaeus in his treatise Species Plantarum back in 1753—more commonly known in Italy as a spaccapietra, (rock-splitter). Cappelli recounted that in an earlier time farmers determined this strange plant would have excellent properties for curing kidney stones. This kind of information is as relevant to us in this changing environment as it would have been back in their day.
Interestingly, Cappelli’s own family was deeply effected by war, and her parents extremely conscious about foraging for consumable vegetation. She recounted how people from their generation were committed to the science called Phytoalimurgia . Accordingly, the term originates in 1767, when the Italian physician Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti wrote the book “De alimenti urgentia” with the aim of helping people in times of starvation.
With the consensus of the AD-Lab course participants, we have decided to publish in our project the Phytoalimurgia Archive, where readers will find references to about two dozen plants, flowers and herbs that grow in the surrounding region and that exhibit nutritional and or medicinal properties. Significantly this kind of vegetation is not just good for human consumption. I remember very well when I was a kid, that my own dog would purposely eat a certain type of grass to relieve indigestion. One stern warning we should heed is never again separate the human from nature, lest we fall back to the original problem that started it all: this sense of superiority over nature, as Stefano Mancuso has observed in his book La Pianta del mondo, that got us into this alienating process leading to extreme climate conditions in the first place.
- AD-Lab NABA: critical methods in visual thinking and creative research. — 06.07.2024
- NABA: Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Roma. The New Academy of Arts, Rome. — 08.03.2024
- Lo Sguardo di Dante/ The Mimetic Observer at the Barberini — 14.11.2023
- The Mimetic Observer: A visual reading on Dante’s Divine Comedy. — 17.04.2023
- the SUM TOTAL NEWSLETTER: — 18.11.2022
- Dante’s Gaze/ Lo Sguardo di Dante — 17.09.2021
- Platform Austria: Venice Biennale — 15.09.2021
- Listen/ Lyssna Färgfabriken Konsthall Stockholm — 07.09.2021
- — 16.01.2021
- new publication: The Figure of Knowledge Conditioning Architectural Theory, 1960s – 1990s — 26.10.2020
- Mutadis Mutandis, Venice, Studio Giardini. Oct. 16, 2020 — 24.10.2020
- Now on Vimeo: Urgent Pedagogies: Concluding Panel — 06.10.2020
- WordCast # 1 @Ararat Peter Lang talks to Lorenzo Romito — 30.04.2020
- Fargfabriken, Skellefteå, Virserum: Lysnna, Listen — 24.04.2020
- Coming Soon in Rome: IED History as Theory and Practice: Urban Studies and Environmental Design — 30.03.2020
- Architect’s Newspaper: Gio Ponti gets a loving retrospective at the MAXXI — 04.03.2020
- Architect’s Newspaper: Adolfo Natalini’s Final Vanishing Act — 27.01.2020
- R-lab Zagreb: Collapse on Hold, at the Pogon. — 25.12.2019
- Architecture of Migration, Conference- Riga Latvia. — 01.11.2019
- Skissernas Museum: Hinterlands+ 19/09/19 — 23.09.2019
- Peter T. Lang and Salvatore Scibona with Luca Molinari WORLD CITY: NEW YORK — 13.09.2019
- Architect’s Newspaper: Reflecting on Cristiano Toraldo di Francia — 16.08.2019
- R-Lab Archive: Where to find links to every R-Lab course — 22.03.2019
- Italian Design Day 2019: Critical Utopias, Superstudio and the City — 16.03.2019
- from the Archive: Downtown Austin’s Arthouse: 25 October 2012 — 02.11.2018
- Frieze: Everything and Everywhere is a School, review — 30.10.2018
- Arch Daily: Top Books on Architecture — 13.09.2018
- Chart Art Fair Design: Luggage Fitness — 13.09.2018
- Manifesta 12 is the real deal. Architect’s Newspaper — 26.07.2018
- How the 1980 Venice Biennale transformed architectural discourse REVIEW — 23.05.2018
- Stalker Naked Archive Lottery the Exhibition ETH Zurich — 01.03.2018
- Beyond Change Questioning the role of design in times of global transformations Swiss Design Network Summit, March 8–10, 2018 — 07.02.2018
- book presentation at the Museo Pecci: “Neoavanguardie e controcultura a Firenze” — 23.12.2017
- Architect’s Newspaper review: In Florence, an unprecedented gathering at “Radical Utopias” — 18.11.2017
- DeSingel Antwerp: Drawing Ambience — 24.10.2017
- Radicals Marathon/Maratona Radicals 23/10/17 — 13.10.2017
- Pelin Tan: talk on Autonomous Infrastructure, @ Konsthall C — 07.10.2017
- the Skissernas Museum: The Fake, The False and the Fraudulent: coding and uncoding public monuments in contested spaces — 07.10.2017
- Triple I: Investigating Interdisciplinary Informality, 3-4 Oct. 2017 — 07.10.2017
- “Anti Modus Operandi – radical strategies for social engagement in architecture and design in the 60’s and 70’s Italy” — 23.08.2017
- Domus Academy: Prototyping Ideas — 20.08.2017
- IN 2017 CHART DESIGN WILL PRESENT A CURATED PROGRAMME ENTITLED WHAT IT IS, WHEN IT IS NOT — 20.08.2017
- Interdisciplinary urban dialogue-Workshop Varberg, Sweden — 23.07.2017
- Rowe Rome: City of Good Intentions, 21-23 /6/2017 — 23.06.2017
- The Architecture of Bogdan Bogdanovic and the Iconographic Resistance to Balkanisation — 11.04.2017
- Carlo Caldini, co-founder of Gruppo 9999, passes away — 20.03.2017
- Architectures, Natures & Data: The Politics of Environments Conference Tallinn — 14.03.2017
- KTH talk: S – SPACE THE EXPERIMENTAL CLASSROOM. 1970 – 1971 — 01.03.2017
- The Last Avant-Garde, radical design in Italy 1966-1986 — 27.02.2017
- Proof Aliens Exist in Rotterdam! — 21.02.2017
- Theory’s History Challenges in the historiography of architectural knowledge — 05.02.2017
- Proof Aliens Exist and other Projects about the Future — 09.01.2017
- The Society of Interiors, AADR Publishers — 30.11.2016
- Urban Day December 6 — 29.11.2016
- RADICAL ENCOUNTERS 12/11/2016 MAXXI — 11.11.2016
- International Lectures Series Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts — 04.10.2016
- Walkabout “Mandrionesca” Promiscuous interferences for Roma Poesia, Wednesday Sept 14 — 12.09.2016
- Stalker: Ground Walk, Vilnius — 21.06.2016
- Book Launch, at the Acquario, Casa dell’architettura: Rome Nome Plurale di Citta’ — 15.06.2016
- Under Siege: Stories from Kurdistan in Rome/ 30 May, 17:00 — 29.05.2016
- R-Lab Reification: at Alpha and Beta Ville — 24.05.2016
- Stockholm University: Curating Architecture — 04.05.2016
- Mashup: the Birth of Modern Culture/ Vancouver Art Gallery — 22.02.2016
- Pedagogies of Space @Index — 12.02.2016
- Tank: “Bubbles” Magazine Launch, London. — 10.02.2016
- Studio Roma: Attraverso Le Istituzioni, Roma a Nudo — 30.01.2016
- BAC & BAK: THE MISSING EUROPE: BALTIC AND BALKAN — 30.01.2016
- Superstudio: the Continuous Room- Konstfack — 27.01.2016
- VICEVERSA Magazine No. 3, December 2105 — 23.12.2015
- REVIEW> SUPERSTUDIO’S LOST OFFSPRING A new exhibition explores the legacy of Superstudio in unexpected places. — 22.12.2015
- Code-X redux, Mardin Artuklu Mimarlik — 08.12.2015
- Code-X: Architecture, Utopia, Revolution: @Aarhus — 27.11.2015
- Italian Radical Education in the Age of Dissent, Warsaw — 21.10.2015
- Super Superstudio: PAC, Milan — 11.10.2015
- R-Lab, Architecture Design Media: new course at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm — 08.07.2015
- TALK SHOW “Display on Display” Tensta Konsthall April 15, 2015 — 27.04.2015
- Just out: Materia Arquitectura Magazine edited by Nicolás Stutzin — 20.03.2015
- 3 x Superstudio: Jolly 2 Pistoia 1966, Trigon Graz 1969, Mana Art Rome 1971 — 02.03.2015
- Frederick Kiesler: Visions at Work Annotated by Céline Condorelli and Six Student Groups — 08.02.2015
- Research Week at the Royal Institute of Art — 28.01.2015
- Rem Koolhaas’ Biennale: or How the Tempest Swept Venice A/N BLOG — 20.10.2014
- Colonialismo e Identità Nazionale L’Oltremare tra Fascismo e Repubblica Seminario Nazionale SISSCo — 25.09.2014
- Art in Translation: the border complex. Reykjavik 18-20 September — 16.09.2014
- TallkottTalk: 29 August 2014: Stockholm: Alienlands: the New Communities — 30.08.2014
- JAE Reviews Exhibit Review: Forms of Freedom: African Independence and Nordic Models at the Venice Biennale — 15.07.2014
- radical pedagogies/ 14 biennale architecture Venice/ — 14.06.2014
- Biennale Urbana/ Swiss Pavilion/ ETH / Stalker Walking School — 11.06.2014
- Urban Re-Mix: the Final Review 27 May/ Exhibition Inauguration-28 May — 22.05.2014
- Haunted by Shadows of the Future: Horizons, Jam Session! — 27.03.2014
- Private Conversations in Public Places #1. — 09.03.2014
- MAKE YOUR OWN COMFORT ZONES — 28.01.2014
- Urban Re Mix: the WORKSHOP: Haunted by Shadows of the Future-Artefacts — 23.01.2014
- organising discourse Open Lecture at the Konstfack (Svarta havet) — 13.01.2014
- Architecture on Film: Italy – The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, 1972 + Q&A with Gaetano Pesce and Peter Lang Thurs 28 November 2013, 7pm — 30.12.2013
- Gizmo magazine interview with Luca Molinari on Environments Counter Environments — 11.12.2013
- Environment and Counter Environment the INLD films screening at the Barbican — 29.11.2013
- Esra Akcan reviews Environments and Counter Environments in JAE — 23.11.2013
- Kungl. Konsthögskolans forskningsvecka Royal Institute of Art’s Research Week 21—24 oktober/October 2013 — 16.10.2013
- the Normalcy Project: Talk Show video — 07.10.2013