Cultural Sedimentation, Resilient Adaptation and Aquatic Speculation
Shaking hands with a 2000 year old fingerprint: This is just one of the many highlights of the fieldwork campaign that we joined in the Pontine Marshes, located southeast of Rome.
Last year from September till half of November, de Onkruidenier was invited as artist in residence at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR). In the framework of this research period we zoomed in and out on the many time layers in the framework of our project SWEET – SWEAT Cultural Sedimentation, Resilient Adaptation and Aquatic Speculation. Aside from doing a lot of reading and exploring in the beautiful KNIR library, collecting visual images and wandering around the city, we had the pleasure to join an archeological fieldwork mission in the countryside. As part of our long term research SWEET – SWEAT that is related to the Dutch landscape, we connected these previous experiences to the wetlands of the Pontine area. We joined in on the ongoing research of archaeologist and project coördinator Tymon de Haas, archaeobotanist Mans Schepers and PhD archaeologist Manuel Peters. Tymon has been looking into the traces of Roman settlements in this local landscape for 20 years. We zoomed in on the irreversible human interaction with the landscape during the past millenniums and we participated in an archeological survey to connect the research to current day interpretations of the past. Scanning the time frames of plenty of shards, to create and speculate about new pictures of human landscape relations.
Many thanks to Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the KNIR and Akademie van Kunsten for making this collaboration and residency in Rome possible.