The genesis of our studio can be traced back at the turn of the year 2021-2022. After experimenting with writing two-handed short stories together in our spare time we conceived the idea, at a pivotal moment in our lives, to work together and entangle our diverse paths into a shared journey. A journey guided by our kinship with nature and the responsibility to co-create conditions for renewal during a time of profound uncertainty alongside human and more-than-human alike.
In the beginning, we initiated multiple projects and entered international competitions as experimental interfaces to test the synergy of our collaboration. This was a period of enthusiasm and stimulation but also a time in which the labour behind each step remained mostly invisible to the outside, creating increased frustration.
And then the pace slowed. Challenges multiplied. We found ourselves balancing multiple existences in order to find ways to finance the project of the studio which consumed a voluminous portion of our time and energy. A fragile equilibrium. Burnout set in. Eco-anxiety became a background hum. Bureaucratic demands grew heavy. Instability in our living situation made every decision feel unbearable.
As time passed and projects and ideas continued to emerge, the schedule we had to maintain began to feel increasingly oppressive. There was no time to properly develop anything while the fear grew that if the project of the studio itself did not become manifest, we would lose the strength to keep going. Connetting with people in order to create that beautiful contamination and stimulation that arises from sharing visions and perspectives proved to be another point of strain in a post-covid world, after years of nomadism. Like a mycelium network that does not expand, we felt a kind of isolation and disconnection. And yet, we were deeply connected with the natural world around us: its constant presence, its otherness and care. Outside our studio stands this beautiful Ulmus who became our companion, together with all the critters inhabiting it or just passing by, teaching us the passing of time outside a human perspective.
Today we are here, with this present website, conceived like a synthetic symbiont in which living evolving projects and ideas take form.
All our ideas and projects that are still not here and those that are here only partially or as an imperceptible yet perceivable presence, now reside in a meta and physical space of fermentation and incubation, akin to an ecological site of transformation where ideas and projects are never lost, left unfinished or abandoned but metabolised, composted, grown.
A counter-archive that celebrates complexity, interruptions, and fragility as integral parts of making. Ideas as co-beings with their own rhythms.
The story of creative practice is almost always told as if it were frictionless: outputs without fatigue, successes without the chaos and mess of what it takes to exist in this form. We know even this fabulation could be consumed as another “authentic” story for an audience hungry for relatable creatives, treating difficulties as a brand. But our intent is to refuse the polished narrative that erases the human and nonhuman labour that it takes to make anything at all.
And while these struggles feel deeply personal when you are in them, we know they are systemic, shaped by the structures of the creative economy and the infrastructures that support, or fail to support, this work. Nourished by inequalities about who can keep going. Concealing the emotional and bodily toll that it takes to simply sustain a practice built on invisible labour, sustained through fragile networks of human and nonhuman collaborators, shaped by cycles of energy, time, and care. We know that even the act of sharing these words might be co-opted by the same narratives we resist. But we hope it can instead serve as an opening for recognising the real, unglamorous conditions of creative life, and for imagining ways to change them.
We share this because we believe in the radical importance of telling other stories, where many perspectives speak, and where struggle itself is given space.
For us, storytelling is a survival skill, a way of worlding, a means to weave relations that can hold us through collapse and repair.
There are many ways to walk this life, and many kinds of survival. This is just one of them.
We invite whomever will read this text to connect with us and to share their personal story, their challenges and tools for persevering and regenerating. Because in the telling, new kinships can be made. And in those kinships, other futures.
He knocked on the door of the little room with a hesitant gesture.
“Come in!!” she said from the other side of the door.
He carefully entered the room. A scent of bergamot flowers and basil pervaded the space, enveloped in the violet tones of the growing lights. She was immersed in a jungle of plants, the ceiling covered in a tapestry of biomaterials with varied texture and shapes, undulating like a pocket sea of new organic forms. He immediately felt a bit calmer in the warm, biophilic atmosphere of that room.
“Look at this!” she said excitedly, pointing to a faint bioluminescent glow emanating from a round and slimy patch positioned on her arm. “It’s the prototype for the glowing suit. It has now detected a change on the microflora of my skin. It might work as we imagined, but there is still a lot to do.”
He nodded with a sad smile, unable to hide his feelings. She immediately sensed it.
“Oh, what’s going on?”
“The four elements. It is not going to work. We might need another place entirely.”
“Why is that? Didn’t Chris reply with helpful insights?”
“Yeah” he said “ but that was just about the solar part, which works fine along with the water and earth. The wind is the problem.”
She carefully removed the patch from her arm and placed it safely in a Petri dish. Then she wove her way through the plants to reach him.
“Hey, don't worry. We’ll figure something out. Let's go outside together so I can understand better.”
They crossed the studio-apartment towards the balcony, meandering past more plants and ingenious objects and artefacts. Once outside, he showed her the issue.
“See? No wind at all. Even though there is plenty of it, the testing windmill barely generates any energy.”
She looked at the tiny windmill he built to test the prototype that would have powered the server which would host their website. The blades were barely turning, even though a nice scirocco wind was blowing from the southeast.
He continued, “There are ways this could work on the balcony, but the truth is it’s a fix that will take so much time. I’m tired, and there’s still so much work to do.”
He looked down, disheartened. She gazed at him, concerned.
“Why don't we just sit down in the greenhouse and talk this through? It’s almost dark anyway.”
She disappeared inside and returned with refreshing beverages and a handful of cushions, which she placed on the bench in the greenhouse he’d built with discarded materials on the balcony.
He sat down and took a long sip of the chilled, herbal drink she’d made, savouring it slowly. She joined him, taking a deep breath as she settled in.
The algae bioreactor was already producing some energy, and the microbial fuel cells in the soil had started to light up small LEDs scattered in the terrain, constellating the evening in the balcony like fireflies.
“I think it might be time to let some things go, as painful as it is. I’m tired too. We’re risking burnout.”
He nodded. “Yes, wrestling between the studio and all the other things without finally seeing our dream come to light is really challenging. I think it’s the wiser decision right now.”
“Alright I am going to take the box then.”
“Are you sure about it?”
She smiled and nodded. “I am sure. Don't worry. I feel sad about it, but we will just put it aside. It is ok.”
She went inside again, this time emerging with a small box made of a peculiar organic material akin to microbial biofilm. She sat down again, holding the box between her hands.
“Let’s just focus on one thing and put all the others in the fermentarium. Time is passing so fast and we’re exhausted.”
He looked at her, a little worried. “Are you sure-sure?”
“I am sure. Let’s do it.”
She opened the living artefact, revealing an infinite space contained within the small 30x30cm object. A counter-archive, a meta- and physical space of fermentation and incubation, akin to an ecological site of transformation where ideas are never lost or abandoned, but metabolised, composted, grown.
He took the seeds of their projects and let them go in the warm insides of the artifact. She then closed it delicately, and it was done.
They sat in silence for a moment, reflecting on the past years, on all the hardships they had faced and endured: the malady, the moments of eco-anxiety and doubts, the precarity of their habitat, the looming presence of time slipping away—time that was never enough. These thoughts slowly dissolved in the atmosphere as they became more present in their bodies, observers of the moment, aware of their steady breath, the small noises of their ecosystem like the rolling swarm of the insects, the smooth rustle of the wind through the leaves, the multitude of smells in the air, the pulsating rhythm of the reactor.
After some time of contemplation, they began to talk about the project they wanted to focus on: the world building, the drawings, and all the elements that could enrich it as the manifesto of their work. Even though there was still much to do before they could share it, at least another year of research and development, a feeling of relief and renewed enthusiasm was perceivable in the atmosphere of the balcony.
The darkness was calmly replacing the day.
“I feel at peace now with the decision we’ve made.”
He nodded in relief. “Yes, I am too.”
She looked at his face.
“Your eyes are becoming really big and yellow.”
She touched some white feathers that were growing on his arms. “Oh you are probably a bird today. You should explore the sky.”
He stood up and leaned out onto the balcony, finally flying into the night as a nocturnal bird.
She watched him disappear among the trees with a smile and slowly moved towards some plants on the balcony. Kneeling beside a large pot, she dug her fingers into the soil. Today, it was the turn of the Cestrum nocturnum. Her skin slowly took on a green hue as she entered into symbiosis with the plant, becoming one. A sweet fragrance of jasmine enveloped them both. She closed her eyes, feeling a wave of serenity coursing through her, coming from the soil and her entanglement with the plant. The sun of dawn would nourish her for a while before starting another day of work together, charged with new perspectives and ready for novel challenges.