Last week, we presented our final project for our masters degree. Now, my group begins the process of finding partners that want to embark on this adventure with us and turn a crazy idea into an inspiring reality.

Given that the masters was in Italy, all our documentation is in Italian. So this week I translate. But I am not only translating words, I am translating cultural references from a one that already understands the underlying premise of the location to one who has maybe never heard this story before.

To make sure I get this right, I need your help. Can you please read this brief description of our project and let me know what you think?  Does it make sense? Is it clear? Does it intrigue you? Would you want to come?I appreciate any and all feedback, constructive criticism, questions, concerns... all of this will be integrated in the final output.

And if you would like to sponsor us or have any experience getting partners/sponsors for something like this, we would love to hear from you!

Thank you for your time, collaboration, and endless support!
-Tigrilla Gardenia, and co.

Biophilia in Compressed Time

\ Matera, mother, matrix, City of Stones, one of the oldest living cities in the world: continuously inhabited since the stone age. After being declared in the 1950s la vergogna nazionale, the disgrace of Italy, and its citizens subsequently moved to the outskirts, the people of Matera showed their incredible spirit of adaptability and survival by banding together to return the city to its original glory. By 1993, UNESCO declared it a World Heritage site, calling it “the most outstanding, intact example of a troglodyte settlement in the Mediterranean region, perfectly adapted to its terrain and ecosystem.”

To complete the cycle of one of Europe’s most dramatic rags-to-riches stories, the city will showcase its victorious transformation as the European Capital of Culture in 2019.

It is here, inspired by the stories of Pietro Laureano—ICOMOS Italy president, UNESCO consultant, Matera native—and the opportunity to create an exhibit about the values of troglodyte culture and prehistoric civilization for the 2019 festivities, that we give birth to the first Urban Plantsy project.

There was a time when nature was an integral part of our lives. Deforestation, species extinction, pollution, and the insatiable human hunger for more land have created large chasms between “our” world and “theirs”, bringing about a separation where once there was none. As humanity flocks to urban centers, it is here that we have the greatest opportunity for social innovation. Urban Plantasy uses art and science to showcase a possible future city where humanity has reawakened from its plant blindness and moved from co-habitation with the plant world to co-creation.

Biophilia in Compressed Time presents you with a prospective city embedded in ancient values.

Biophilia, which literally means “love of life”, was first introduced by Edward O. Wilson in 1984. The term describes the innate human tendency to seek connections with nature and other living things. Contact with nature is not something optional, but absolutely essential to meaningful urban living. It allows us to deepen and enrich our lives through the natural world, and to add important layers of meaning to the cities in which we live.

This exhibit takes the visitor back to a time when humanity collaborated with nature. It evokes the visceral quality of biophilic, Neolithic life. Innovations on ancient knowledge show the visitor how to reconnect through new and rediscovered possibilities applicable in modern, daily life.

The Compressed Time can be felt in Matera itself: physically in the layers of rock, the water that flows constantly, the Ferula communis (giant fennel) that sprouts above, and conceptually in every individual that has lived and visited there in the last 10,000 years. 

It may seem like a contradiction to imagine a future city by situating it in the distant past. Yet to co-create an urban center with nature, we need to look to a time when the populations—human, vegetal, animal—were in harmony and humanity saw prosperity differently. Marshall Sahlins (Stone Age Economics, 1972) tells of the affluence of our most distant relatives: they wanted for less, knew how to create what was necessary, relied on each other, and reflected more. Their needs were met, therefore they were able to relish their excess time in the company of others. 

Biophilia in Compressed Time is a sensorial exhibit that connects the prehistoric to the present, and brings it into the future through the union with nature in a city that has always lived this bond.

Here you will discover:

\ The Courtyard

Interaction between people. Neighborly connections. Collaboration as necessity and pleasure.

\ The Underground

Place of observation and action. Natural elements often forgotten, rediscovered to bring energy and transform life by involving the senses.

\ The Elevated

Biodiversity embraces the neighborhood, and through sight, perfumes, and emotions, it gives attention to the practical (filtration of water) and figurative (wonder of the landscape) roles of this space.

Matera offers you a stone of your own to take on this journey as you begin to design your tomorrow. Within these ancient walls you will find the malleable clay of the past and a vast set of natural shapes and colors. What will you add to the mandala of tomorrow? 

Unleash the floodgates... what do you think?!

Follow Tigrilla - @yvesoler - for more about
Plant Neurobiology and Interspecies CoCreation

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If you have any questions about interspecies cocreation, #natureinthecity, or plant music: write a comment, contact me via my website, and/or sign up for my newsletter. If you explore related topics, let me know in the comments, I would love to follow you!