Campagna/Campana/Campo

This project takes the bellwether as a point of departure for exploring the interactivity of plants, people, animals, and terrain in relation to climate disaster. The area of Matese, Italy is a shepherding region, where shepherds and flocks circulate between mountains and valleys. Responding to this economic tradition with the practical and poetic qualities of the bellwether, the author uses a hand-operated press to form soil and seeds into earthenware livestock bells.

The earthenware consists of soil and clay collected from routes that shepherds take to and from the mountain pastures. Embedded into the mixture are seeds collected from the tangled wool and fleece of animals moving along these thoroughfares. Clay-bodied bellwethers re-center the rural by entering the cycle of re-seeding terrain. As the sheep graze, the bells will resonate and erode, leaving behind a trail of soil and seeds in the fading echo of sound. These seeds may germinate where they are sewn by the collaboration of shepherd, sheep and sound.

Campagna/Campana/Campo was awarded first prize for Rural design / systemic design objects by Rural Design per la Rigenerazione dei Territori (Rural Design for Territorial Regeneration) during the 2019 Rural Design Week, held in Matese.