Living traces
Project developed during the Artistic Residency “Return to Ithaca”.
With the support of Europe Moves Culture Mobility Grant 2024.
With the support of Europe Moves Culture Mobility Grant 2024.
In Ithaca, the olive trees have stood for centuries as silent witnesses of the history of this magical island. Trees that grew in the times of the Odyssey and that continue to stretch out their branches today as if they are eternally expecting someone's return. It is said that Ulysses carved his bed from the living trunk of an olive tree planted in Ithacan soil. This immobile bed was another demonstration of the strong link to this land, a symbol of his connection to Ithaca, both physically and emotionally. In Greek mythology, the olive tree was a gift from Athena, representing a divine connection between humanity and nature, a proof of how olive trees stand at the threshold between myth and matter.
The morphology of the olive trees reveals another metaphor of time since every pruned branch carries the memory of the hands that have shaped it, generation after generation. Each cut is a dialogue between past and future, a gesture that makes possible the sprouting of new branches from the marks left by those who once cared for it. Those twisted trunks speak the language of a circular time, where the ancient and the present fold into the same story.
This project is an exercise of listening to these ancient olive trees, as living testaments to this land and as a reminder of the profound intertwinement of human and the natural world. "Living Traces" is a reflection on how the natural landscape shapes the identity of this land and how these trees are living connections to the memory of the island that grows and extends through generations. The olive trees remind us that memory is not only written but also lived and planted in the ground.
The morphology of the olive trees reveals another metaphor of time since every pruned branch carries the memory of the hands that have shaped it, generation after generation. Each cut is a dialogue between past and future, a gesture that makes possible the sprouting of new branches from the marks left by those who once cared for it. Those twisted trunks speak the language of a circular time, where the ancient and the present fold into the same story.
This project is an exercise of listening to these ancient olive trees, as living testaments to this land and as a reminder of the profound intertwinement of human and the natural world. "Living Traces" is a reflection on how the natural landscape shapes the identity of this land and how these trees are living connections to the memory of the island that grows and extends through generations. The olive trees remind us that memory is not only written but also lived and planted in the ground.
“There was a rooted olive tree inside the court,
full-grown and flourishing—it was the pillar
around which I built my room.”
— Homer, The Odyssey
