“My name is Michelangelo, and I live in Italy in Castell’Anselmo, a rural village where thirteen inhabitants are hanging on from the hundred or so before them. Those houses are empty or inhabited by strangers, with their minds and eyes far away in the cities and television sets. I live in a traditional house lovingly restored by my father. The house has a vegetable garden, and a garden, where I spend a lot of my time. The vineyard near my home no longer bears fruit, after decades of intensive farming (with the use of hydrocarbons and pesticides) it has been abandoned. Castell’Anselmo is the symbol of nature let free of lost human power. I moved to the countryside twenty-five years ago in order to escape the city and have more contact with the land; my artistic experimentation started here. Through my research I have always turned to those personalities that the ruling political power has pushed to the sidelines as they are deemed ‘inconvenient’ for the system; two of whom in particular I’d like to mention: Ivan Illich (1926-2002), an Austrian philosopher and theorist of degrowth, and Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008), a Japanese microbiologist specialised in phytopathology.”

My name is Hande, and I live in Italy in Luserna San Giovanni, a small town of 7135 inhabitants. My “hometown” is Istanbul, a megalopolis with an estimated population of 16 million. In my thirty-nine years I have moved twenty-nine times. I have been a stranger in foreign lands, and I have been an outsider in my own country; that’s what happens when you return to where you came from. My only roots are shrouded in my childhood memories. The people and places of my reveries no longer exist. I feel part of everywhere and nowhere; I am bound by the Immigrant Syndrome. To people who have always lived where they were born, I am a riddle, and for some of those, I represent the ills of modern society. I am aware of this everywhere I go. I come from a family of immigrants who made Istanbul their home in the 1940s and 50s and raised children in the city. I lived and worked in cosmopolitan cities and mid-sized towns, and I’ve been a commuter, too. It has taken me almost four decades to fulfil my longing to go back to living as close to nature as possible. Now, I live in Val Pellice, one of the Waldensian valleys, in the Cottian Alps, echoing a traumatic history of religious persecution, like the lands my great grandparents had to flee from some 1500 km to my east. It has now been seven months since I moved here and for the first time in a long time, I feel I can hang my hat, take off my migratory shoes, and tell people my name with a smile on my face rather than trepidation. Though, I do dream of moving further into the dead-end valley where there are fewer people and more trees. Love thy nature, for nature is a healer. If I am anything at all, I am a proud tree-hugger.  

Little bird, you are the seed that you eat.

“The era of growth and unrestrained consumption now seems to be heading for an inexorable decline. In this context we have to get to grips with nature: rich countries are devouring nature. Agriculture is in the hands of large multinational companies driven by maximum profit and control through seed patents.”

Once upon a time, we lived in a world where one’s parents would pass down ancestral seeds to their offspring. This was our humanly wealth, this was the lifeblood between humans and the land to which they belonged. Once upon a time, we lived in a world in which food was not only sustenance but also medicine. Through the 20th century, the agriculture industry has made our food become unrecognisable and indigestible. So much so that food no longer nourishes or heals us. Nowadays, finding real heirloom seeds is like finding a needle in a haystack. People tend to forget… Little bird, you are the seed that you eat.

I have been battling with non-hereditary hypothyroidism since the age of sixteen. The thyroid gland regulates the functions of your entire body and when it no longer does its job properly modern medicine dictates that you must become dependent on swallowing synthetic thyroid hormone for the rest of your life, which can lead to numerous side effects ranging from cardiac problems to osteoporosis. Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism is an auto-immune disease and although the actual cause is not known one of the speculations is that it can be caused by environmental factors and exposure to chemical agents. I am not alone. There are millions of people who share my condition. Being angry with a system that played a major role in making you sick for the rest of your life is generally one’s initial impulse. I have to keep reminding myself that feelings of resentment and anger will only contribute to further illness… Though a part of me, cannot stop raging against this debilitating, ruthless machine. All across the world, asthma, allergies and incurable autoimmune diseases are on the rise, especially among younger generations. Are we not entitled to blame the behemoth multinationals that pollute our environment, that make us sick, that make us dependent on the pharmaceutical industry which is solely interested in the creation of sickness for its own profit? You’ve probably read similar ideas before in the works of Ivan Illich (particularly Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health, 1976) which also inform Consani’s artistic practice.

If you protest, if you speak out against it, you shall be instructed to keep quiet. If you keep pushing the buttons you are taught not to push, you shall be taught your lesson in the harshest way possible, by being ignored. You shall find no support. That’s why we are advised to “speak less and listen more”, for speaking is an act of defiance, it is to say, ‘I have a different opinion’. Listening, on the other hand, demands one’s silence, and most often results in acceptance and obedience.

All Roads Lead to... THE CITRUS PROJECT

Which brings me back to Fukuoka’s citrus grove… It seems to have also inspired world-renowned art curator Vicente Todolí who – reviving the land he inherited from his father and enlarging it by buying out adjacent plots – created a 45,000 sq metre citrus farm in Palmera, Spain. Founded in 2013, Todolí Citrus Fundació is a non-profit organisation which focuses on the study and dissemination of citrus and citriculture. Growing 480 varieties of citrus, the foundation aims to promote education, public awareness, and sustainable cultivation practices related to citrus crops. In conjunction with the foundation, The Citrus Project was initiated by Vicente Todolì and curated by Lucía Muñoz Iglesias with the participation of 14 internationally acclaimed artists including Mirosław Bałka, Tacita Dean, Nan Goldin, Paul Graham, Carsten Höller, Roni Horn,Cristina Iglesias, Ragnar Kartansson, Julie Mehretu, Cildo Meireles, Matt Mullican, Antoni Muntadas, Philippe Parreno, Julião Sarmento. 

I approached Vicente Todolí for a statement regarding The Citrus Project and he was kind enough to oblige. Given the introspective context of this blog article, I suppose it is only right to share Todolí's words directly: 

"I’m a fifth-generation citrus specialist. My great-great- grandfather started to plant bitter orange seeds to use
as rootstock in the mid-19th century. You see, since they’re monoembryonic, most citrus can’t be grown from seeds,
but only by grafting a section onto another tree, onto the rootstock. Essentially, you take a piece of the skin of your desired citrus species and then put it into the rootstock. The most common carrier in history was bitter orange, since that can be grown from seeds. My great-great-grandfather was a specialist grafter, selling trees to citrus owners and then taking care of them—grafting, pruning, giving advice. He was a citrus curator, let’s say. This passed from generation to generation.

When I was about 15, my father would wake us up very early on Saturday mornings, when I’d only maybe slept for three hours, and say, “Boys, you have to help. I will pay
you but you have to know what life is about.” It was very hard work because we didn’t have the skills. I didn’t like it at all and my father would say something like, “Well, you may
not want to do it, but roses can really only be appreciated by those who have to work for them, so I recommend you get used to it.” Then I would half-jokingly sing a song by Catalan folk musician [Francesc] Pi de la Serra that went, “The smell of roses
is enjoyed but by those that don’t have to work them.”

After college, I got a Fulbright grant and went to the United States to do a PhD in modern art at Yale, and then I lived in New York for three years. I was a complete urbanite, enjoying the clubs: Area, Mudd Club, Danceteria. Die young, leave a pretty corpse. Then I returned in 1985 to start the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern [IVAM] Museum, but after being in New York
for four years Valencia felt very small. I had a big crisis and decided to take six months off and return to our village.
It was like seeing it all for the first time: the orchards, the mountains, the trees. I needed a balance to the art world, and my therapist told me: “Listen, you have started to think that the world is an image. But an image is fiction, the world is reality. If you take a piece of fruit, an orange or a tangerine, feel it with your hands. It’s not an image.
It’s real.”  That changed my life. The therapist explained that artists don’t have this problem, because they have a deep well. That well is their work, and they can just throw everything in. “But you are just working with art,” he continued, “so you have to balance your work in a different way.”
That’s when I started my first project. I bought some abandoned land in 1990 in the mountains and restored the location, and that’s where I still make olive oil. My second project was in 2000, on the family land where I live now.
I wanted to create my own oasis, so I planted very small palm trees, 17 different kinds.

The initiative to create a portfolio (the one we present in San Gimignano) to support the project came from the artists. I only found out about it when it had already been made. It was really a very beautiful gesture of friendship."