Emigrant Melodies: Leaf Whistling
Kitti Gosztola and Bence György Pálinkás
Saturday, 18 July
15:00 – 19:00
The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life
Intr. Primăverii 10, Siliștea Snagovului
GPS CoordInates
For their workshop at the Experimental Station, Kitti Gosztola and Bence György Pálinkás will explore the traditional folk technique of leaf whistling together with the participants.
Gosztola and Pálinkás have long been interested in the role and symbol of plants in folk culture and folk music. Culture, often perceived as national, is shaped by a constant exchange of its building blocks. Melodies and lyrics travel across linguistic and cultural borders. Plants also move with humans. The artists’ projects try to look at culture not as something that needs to be conserved in an imagined pure form, but as something that needs to be in constant motion.
The leaf whistle can only sound while the plant still holds enough moisture and flexibility, so the sound remains ephemeral and closely tied to the living material. They will experiment with the different sounds of different so-called native and alien species. And they will try to sound together with this archaic technique which is especially good for expressing feelings.
Short bio
Kitti Gosztola and Bence György Pálinkás are an artist duo who have been working together since 2016 on projects that focus on the perception and representation of so-called invasive alien species. Their workshops, installations, videos, and audio works tell stories of green xenophobia, eco-patriotism, various notions of utility, and ways of coexistence.
Their works have been presented, among others, at the Volkskundemuseum Wien, Šopa Gallery in Košice, Ludwig Museum in Budapest, the Art Encounters Biennial in Timișoara, and the OFF-Biennale Budapest. They have also led collaborative workshops as part of the Plant series, at Kunsthalle Bratislava, during the Morning Boat residency programme at Jersey, and within the Veszprém-Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture programme.
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.
Partner: Liszt Institute Bucharest
