A long-term project by the Italian artist and agroecologist on rethinking the relationship with the earth, both from the point of view of humans and plants.
This book is a tool. An invitation to become allies, to raise questions about the complexities and opportunities of an earthly site-specificity. It is a call for an alliance with plants. Plants allow us to tell sometimes painful stories and penetrate the stratification of history. Their roots inhabit it, and their seeds sprout, giving new meanings to it. The intensity and violence of enduring colonialism and its extractive processes imperil the planet. This is nowhere more dramatically apparent than in Democratic Republic of Congo. Here, Ex Situ embraces what arises from a locality, listening to it, learning from it, understanding its importance, and sharing it. The project aims to repair an ecosystem, and to act beyond the global economic system, including its values, narratives, teachings and institutions that produce our identity-driven, consumerist, nationalist societies. Acting with the culture of remedial plants, tilling the detritus of toxic ecosystems, and regenerating them, Ex Situ proposes cultivating a new sensibility of radical care.
Luigi Coppola (born in Lecce, Italy) is an artist, agroecologist, upholder of participatory projects driven by an innovative approach to the politics of the Commons and author of actions designed to activate collective potentials. His work is rooted in site-specific research of social, political and cultural subjects, collectivization of goods, activation of relational dynamics and processes of emancipation and imagination. Since 2013 he is engaged with Casa delle Agriculture in Castiglione d'Otranto (Lecce, Italy) as co-activator of a complex and multilayered process of participative agriculture, recuperation of polluted lands, creation of a participative economy, which revolves around the annual festival Notte Verde: Agriculture, utopias and community, the Parco Comune dei Frutti Minori (Common Park of the Minor Fruits) and Scuola di Agriculture (School of Agricultures), a pedagogical platform that combines agroecological knowledge with artistic strategies and builds relationships with migrant communities, students, farmers and activists. Luigi led a research and workshop revolving around soil, agriculture and pollution in Lubumbashi and Katanga and developed a long term path with a small group of cultural practitioners involved in Ateliers Picha.
Edited by Lucrezia Cipitelli, Dalida María Benfield, Christopher Bratton / CAD+SR.
Contributions by Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Merkal Abilwa, Marco Armiero, Bibatanko, Jackson Bukasa, Lucrezia Cippitelli, Luigi Coppola, Donatien Dibwe Dia Mwembu, Edouard Ilunga wa Ilunga, Nico Wassa, Kevin Kabambi, Petna Ndaliko Katondolo, John Mpaliza, Bérénice Mujinya Kweyi, Oduor Obura.
