acqua, pane e (petr)olio
San Ciro, Atena Lucana, 2019

The installation* acqua, pane e (petr)olio (water, bread and petroleum) — was in response to the aquifer-polluting petroleum drilling by Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI SpA) a state hydrocarbons authority , in Lucania, a formerly pristine agricultural paradise. Cancer rates exploded in Lucania since inland oil drilling by ENI SpA began in the 1990’s. Ironically, the day the installation opened, April 23, 2019, a director of ENI was arrested for covering up an oil spill in 2017.

The installation in the church of San Ciro during La Terra mi Tiene** celebration, took inspiration from the religious context of the church and Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. The installation was comprised of thirteen common dinner plates, repurposed from nearby abandoned homes, placed floating on a glass-like pool of burned engine oil that made up a long table top. Each of twelve plates held a piece of “broken” bread, made fresh, from locally produced ancient grains. The thirteenth plate in the center was filled with a sepolcro (sepulchre). A sepolcro is a hand full of wheat soaked in water and germinated in almost total darkness. It is a customary ritual at Easter time which symbolizes the re-birth of Christ from the darkness of his sepulchre on the third day after His crucifixion.

Is this our last supper? Are we going to nurture a re-birth of society, as we recognize the environmental dead end we have reached?

*This was the second site-specific installation for the festival La Terra Mi Tiene in Atena Lucana. The festival, in it's fifth (6th) year, celebrates agrarian customs and culture of the Italian South, known prior to the unification of Italy in 1870, as the Regno delle Due Sicilie. The festival takes its title from a poem by the poet and social activist Rocco Scotellaro - meaning the earth holds me. The vent is organized by a new generation of farmers who consider themselves stewards of the land and responsible to continue the small farming traditions of their ancestors by planting ancient grains - an act of resistance against the seed manipulation by multinational corporations such a Monsanto.

**La Terra mi Tiene is a festival held every year in Atena Lucana, on Italy’s Liberation Day, April 25th (April 23-25). Bread makers from many walks of life, gather to make bread using traditional methods and old yeast cultures, to raise awareness of the need to liberate society from the globalization of food production, which is destroying bio-diversity everywhere. It is a call to return to the land and practice local, sustainable food production, preserve ancient seeds and farming practices, so humans, animals, and plants can coexists for the sake of a healthier planet. Art, musics, poetry readings, story telling and cooking activities take place around the central event of firing numerous wood-fired brick ovens inside the abandoned homes of the historic center of the town.