The Earth Does Not Understand English*
Food, memory, and collective futures in Gaza, Ukraine and Jersey
With Dana Olărescu and other guests at the Cosmos Garden
Saturday, 6 September 2025
Hours: 11:00 – 18:00
The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life
Intr. Primăverii 10, Siliștea Snagovului village, Gruiu commune, Ilfov county
What does it mean to cultivate life in times of genocide, occupation, and ongoing attempts to eradicate both human and more-than-human forms of existence?
On the 6th of September, the Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life will host a day of conversation, co-learning, and collective cooking led by socially engaged artist Dana Olărescu and guests. Part of the exchange between four different gardens around Bucharest, this third event will trace connections between three regions shaped by histories and presents of occupation:
• Gaza, where Israeli military action has produced mass starvation and the deliberate destruction of farmland and plant life. Through readings, images, and discussion, we will explore the work of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library (founded by artist-conservationist Vivien Sansour to preserve Palestinian seeds and foodways) alongside Forensic Architecture’s recent investigation into ecocide in Gaza.
• Ukraine, through the youth-led project Uncounted 1932–2022, which reflects on food as a weapon of genocide during the Holodomor. Millions perished in the 1932–1933 famine triggered by Stalin’s forced collectivisation. The project presented survival dishes such as bread made from grass, potato waste, and tree bark in a mobile restaurant, while also drawing parallels to the consequences of Russia’s ongoing invasion today.
• Jersey, the only part of the British Isles occupied by Nazi Germany, where the climate crisis has brought new seaweed species to its shores. As part of Olărescu’s project Abundant Futures, children collaborated with artist Kaajal Modi to connect land, language, and biodiversity. Their naming of these seaweeds in Jèrriais, once the language of the island’s farming community and unrecognised by English settlers, has since been included in the official Jèrriais dictionary.
Turning our attention to the local, we will then hear about a life-sustaining garden in Bucharest, founded by Catinca Drăgănescu, director of Masca Theatre, an alternative socio-political space that invites audiences to reflect on the role of theatre in everyday life and aspires to become Romania’s first ecological theatre. The garden has since grown into a gathering place where the local community, students, and garden enthusiasts come together to care for the soil and take part in collective projects.
The day will close with a collective cooking session led by chef-anthropologist Cristian Săndulescu. Participants are invited to bring one ingredient that, for them, represents life. Together, we will prepare and share a communal meal that embodies resilience, care, and continuity.
*”The Earth Does Not Understand English” is the English rendition of an expression in Jèrriais (Jersey’s vernacular language) that points to how traditional land practices changed after English settlers arrived on Jersey in 1824. The newcomers did not integrate with the local population, disrupting long-established methods of working the soil.
Dana Olărescu (b. 1985, România) is a London-based socially engaged artist working at the intersection of installation, performance, and social design, whose practice challenges minority exclusion and environmental injustice. Through participatory methodologies that democratise access to art and knowledge, she aims to give under-served migrant groups and people habitually excluded from decision-making processes the agency to become active co-producers of culture.
At present, she is leading Abundant Futures, a long-term project supported by ArtHouse Jersey, focusing on transforming a small island into a hub for inclusive engagement with migrant communities through food politics. In parallel, she is developing the Alternative School of Food Politics in Nelson, UK, in partnership with Super Slow Way and in-situ, a collaborative initiative that works with local residents to co-design a community-led food strategy.
The event is part of the program Cultivators of Life, a multianual project organized by Tranzit.ro/Bucharest Association and co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The program continues and supports the activities started in 2021 at the Experimental Research Station for Research on Art and Life in Siliștea Snagovului, focused on conserving biodiversity, testing ecological prototypes, and rethinking the relationship between soils, materials and artistic production. Curated by Adelina Luft, the program proposes the study and formulation of a new lexicon and practices related to an emerging relationship between indigenous/ancestral knowledge, land cultivation and natural sciences, realized through a series of artistic residencies, open events in gardens around Bucharest, applied workshops, conferences with indigenous thinkers and a final group in 2026 at MODEM – Center for Modern and Contemporary Art in Debrecen.
The program does not necessarily represent the official position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN shall not be held liable for the program's content or any use to which the program outcome might be put. These are the sole responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.
