Akropolis Challenge

What is a trail? Apparently, this question may seem trivial, yet by digging deeply, it is possible to find obvious but forgotten meanings. A trail is a path, a line between two points, a ribbon that unravels where everything else is landscape. But it is also a series of places that one after the other make up a concatenation of emotions, views, historical and cultural memories. A trail is a set of gaps and perceptions, each different, experienced by users of various natures, interests and ages. Precisely for this reason simply defining a trail as a path is reductive.

The great master of every place is History. The passage of time and the events that follow create History with a capital “H”, while time and diligence, patience and passion create minor stories, those of men who modify territories, who shape the face of nature according to necessity, and which, as the years and then the centuries pass, create a landscape. There is no doubt that the trail that cuts through Monte Ginestro towards its summit, the ancient road to the acropolis of Praeneste, is to all intents and purposes carved into the limestone rock by time and men, with a history that still today it is possible to read in various places, but which the less expert eye tends to pass by carelessly.

Precisely the lack of readability, or rather, the lost readability, combined with the low attendance of the place, have led to thinking about a long-term way of restoring the potential of some specific polarities, now almost forgotten and invaded by vegetation.

The trail is an ancient and modern place at the same time: enclosed by the polygonal walls made when the site was internally a sacred enclosure, a place of the divine, a destination for adoration and spiritual ascent; its path on the contrary is the modern fruit of arbitrary choices and not coherent with the landscape and identifiable archaeological sites. Its progress does not respect morphology and nature.

The trail that connects Palestrina to Castel San Pietro Romano is an example of how a connection can contain numerous stories and interactions within it. It is experienced differently by locals, by hikers and by those who, with the desire to bring forgotten peculiarities to the surface, wish to enhance its attractiveness.

The adoption of site-specific tactics, the use of materials found on site and the simple delicacy of the interventions can provide a key to understanding the landscape, leveraging visual and functional references, to amplify the interest towards this jagged axis that connects two vital hubs of the territory.

Unfortunately, due to the very nature of the place, a disruption did not allow the realization of the land art intervention conceived by Landscape First and Liminal. A fire has in fact radically changed the appearance of the slope of Monte Ginestro where the acropolis trail passes.

This does not mean that the Akropolis Challenge journey has been interrupted. Indeed, it continued by exploiting the opportunities that an unexpected event can provide for the study of the landscape. A rare chance to investigate the consequences of a fire in the arid meadow of the Prenestini Mountains. Just as the bombings of the Second World War allowed to study the formidable archaeological heritage of the ancient Praeneste area, the unpredictability of the fire also made it possible to identify new “discoveries” and routes through the landscape.

The Challenge was organized in groups of three people, each of which carried out a micro-activity of study and investigation, based on local elements (rocks, vegetation, soil), and their transformation due to fire. Each activity was conducted on three levels: action, photography and sketching. The different actions had the function of “opening” new “perspectives” on the landscape of Monte Ginestro, exploring the results of the interaction between element and fire.

Each group was assigned a specific theme on which to work, to develop starting from three declinations: outwards, inwards, on the specific element. The themes and their instructions were:

Excavation:

1. Remove portions of soil
2. Photograph with reference to the panorama
3. Photograph the layers
4. Design and analyze layering patterns

Arrangement of stones:

1. Collect and arrange the stones according to simple geometric patterns (straight lines, squares, circles)
2. The layout towards the outside must highlight visual elements
3. The inward layout must highlight specific elements of the local landscape
4. The arrangements become site-specific elements, micro-land art formations

Accumulation of stones:

1. Collect and arrange the stones according to different volumes (single, multiple, connected or not)
2. The accumulation must relate to the larger territory (elevation and change of perspective)
3. The accumulation must also relate to the inward (framing of local elements)
4. The accumulations constitute an element of micro-land art

Vegetation:

1. Observation and simplified drawing of the vegetation that escaped the fire
2. Specific analysis on individual specimens (cutting and observation of burnt branches)
3. Collection and sampling of plant elements

Twine:

1. Identify and isolate with twine the possible ecological niches that escaped the fire
2. Create a thematic “fil rouge” by physically uniting individual elements of the landscape
3. Collect and tie small mineral or vegetable elements with twine to create micro-installations

The results of these simple operations have led to surprising analyzes of a piece of territory that go beyond simple observation. Fundamentally, what has been able to be deduced is that the fire, beyond the criticality of its occurrence, is an element present in the very fabric of this ecosystem, a presence that must not necessarily be seen only from the destructive side, but which contributes to the renewal and regeneration of arid meadow.

The key that guided all points of view in the execution of these “landscape exercises” is that of the specificity of the place. This can be seen from the direct approach that all groups have adopted with the elements made available by the territory itself. The vegetation group undertook in-depth research on the plant species present, distinguishing those that escaped the fire, observing the state of seeds, branches and bulbs collected and catalogued, appreciating their state of resistance to fire and conservation, evaluating the possibilities of future dispersions. Furthermore, they created a collection of “soundscapes”, sampling noises that emerged from the site. A delicate and often overlooked aspect, but of fundamental importance in the analysis of a landscape.

The excavation team instead observed, through tests in various points of the site, how the soil reacted to the passage of the fire, finding interesting phenomena. First of all, they deduced that the rapidity of the fire allowed the soil to be preserved, as well as the roots of the plants. A slight humidity was found, allowing to maintain a vital environment for vegetation and microfauna. The compaction of the soil due to the continuous passage has allowed the path to remain almost intact. The diversity of the ashes or the variable depth where the action of the fire was observed is due to the density and difference in vegetation and substrate.

The group responsible for arranging the stones interpreted the landscape through three micro-land art installations. The first is a formation of lines that frame distant elements in the territory: a grain refining plant, a commercial distribution center and a wheat field. The complete cycle of food production is represented here, in its different stages, delimited by stone axes that direct the gaze. The second intervention concerns a specific element of the landscape, a tree that escaped the flames. This, in its singularity, is enhanced through the installation of a square stone outline, as if to protect it from further upheavals. The plant, not unique in type but representative of an entire group of surviving specimens, becomes a symbol and spatial reference. The third installation concerns the shape of the surrounding territory, using a crossing of lines and a slight excavation of the ground.

The members of the group equipped with twine have developed a large-scale installation that encloses the space between three vertices, forming a triangle that identifies some specific elements; inside it is a linear environmental installation: some plant elements typical of the place have been fixed on a twine, small entities left untouched by the fury of the fire. To this a poetic touch was added, combining some verses of Leopardi’s poem La Ginestra with time and circumstances:

“Where you sat, gentle flower, and it seems
You pity the damages of the others, to the heaven
You send the sweetest smell
Which comforts the desert”.

The desert which at that time was Monte Ginestro (which takes its name from the spontaneous presence of the rush broom, in Italian “ginestra”) still remained a fascinating place, made even more particular by the annihilation due to the fire. But the lesson that new life is born from flames was certainly incorporated by everyone.

The group responsible for the accumulation of stones has created a sort of monument to the “here and now”, creating a stone flame that burns with cold embers, polarizing the gaze of visitors towards an unusual element in the landscape, an attractor of curiosity that embodies in the simple gesture of overlapping stones, the destruction and rebirth that nature offers to the mountainside.

Once the work was finished, between the fatigue and the ash left on the skin, the vision of what had happened and the analyzes carried out were the best rewards. The knowledge resulting from simple actions, with even simpler materials, can make us reflect on the intrinsic beauty of the landscape. Its complexity faced with creativity and ingenuity allows to undertake a profound reading and obtain knowledge that only practice permits. It’s one thing to observe a landscape, one thing to know it, another thing to experience it.