Individual Residencies
2023 | Magdalena Choluj
I undertook The Museum of Loss and Renewal’s first fully-funded Orkney (Scotland)-Collemacchia (Italy) residency. This residency has been initiated by Tracy Mackenna & Edwin Janssen to foster links between the two remarkable places that are home to The Museum of Loss and Renewal.
I immersed myself in the natural world and ethnobotanical heritage of Collemacchia. Field work, and study of the local flora were the backbone of the project, supported by research into the regional use of plants in the context of their traditional, medicinal, and folkloric use – in the past and in the present day.
I used the residency’s time and space to reflect upon the biodiversity of the region and to document not only the species encountered, but to observe the relationships between residents and the area’s living species. A collection of pen and ink drawings, prints, analogue photographs, and written observations, created during the residency, will explore possible connections between the traditions of Collemacchia and Scotland’s Orkney Islands.
Magdalena Choluj is the recipient of the Orkney-Collemacchia Residency 2023. This opportunity was made possible in part through a generous gift by artist and naturopathic doctor Bonnie Star Marsh.