For some time now I interweave land, body and soul in work, centering on ‘acupuncture of place’. For 2026, I am a research fellow at the Pianpicollo Selvatico Foundation in Southern Piemonte, a rural research center focused on interspecies coexistence and care, founded by Alice Benessia. Before dedicating herself to the many beings – mineral, animal and vegetal – of Pianpicollo (trans. Little Wild Plain), Alice earned a Ph.D. in Science, Technology and Law, an M.A. in the Philosophical Foundations of Physics and an M.F.A in Photography and Related Media. Today her camera bears witness to the cycles of life on the land she inhabits.
During my seasonal stays there, I intend to listen to how the land and its stones speak to me, journal emerging perceptions and dreams, and look for ways to respond, in what nature vigil guide Natasha Lythgoe calls “a call-and -response with the living world and with the currents of the imaginal” (The Art of Rewilding). I will also apply practices and learnings from Natasha’s 2026 Murmuration mentoring, on finding our way back to being dreamt by Earth.
May this year of the Fire Horse and its thirteen moon cycles support me in remembering to keep moving away from binary, human-centric perspectives and embrace plural, eco-centric modes of being. Imprints and moments from my time at Pianpicollo Selvatico will be processed in the upcoming issue of Field Essays: Turning the Gaze Inwards / Being Here. In this series, published w/ Jap Sam Books and realised w/ graphic design studio Inedition, I enable image- and text-based dialogue across indigenous, somatic, vernacular, and academic ways of knowing. I envision the issue to come as a trilogy on verticality-as-presence in the inner leadership work I do with horses, in Buddhist practice and in plant/Earth thinking.
Thanks, Chiara Sgaramella for putting me first in touch with Alice and her living sanctuary <3
