Soft green light. A captivating soundtrack slowly draws the audience in, rustling leaves, flowing water, and the calls of various animals. Amidst it all, two artists invite us to experience “the true value of forests” in their own unique way over the next 40 minutes. ‘Tany fivelomana – Between Land and Forest’ is the first presentation of a work in development, a fascinating multichannel audiovisual exploration by artists Antsa Arimalala and Alexandra Baumgartner, presented on February 28 in Rome. In the Sala Elvetica at  Istituto Svizzero, an audience of around 80 people witnessed an immersive performance where music, visual installations, forest sounds, and powerful testimonies of people who live with and from the forest came together. The piece features voices from, among others, the inhabitants of Madagascar’s Masoala Peninsula, for whom the rainforest is a vital source of livelihood. It focuses on different imaginaries and perceptions that come to shape how ‘forest’ is understood in the North and in the South – and to critically reflect on it. 

The artists, Alexandra Baumgartner and Antsa Arimalala, describe their approach as  a visible way to present the concept of ‘Tany fivelomana’ - Malagasy term for ‘sustainable land management’ referring to practices that meet the needs of nature without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. This occurs “via a ‘walk’ through a landscape composed of a river, pastures, rice fields, agroforestry, and a patch of sacred forest – with a mainstream Western perception of tropical forests a place for nature, biodiversity, exotic beauty and recreation.” This dimension of the work was highlighted, amongst other things, through an exercise which the two artists conducted at the end of the piece, the ‘human forest’. For this, they asked one part of the audience to create ‘forest sounds’ by, for example, imitating animal calls or making the sound of rustling leaves. The other part of the audience was supposed to listen attentively. For a few intense minutes, the audience merged into a forest—or rather, into what they imagined a forest to be.

"Forests are a source of life for everyone," emphasized Antsa Arimalala after the performance and the exercice, which visibly moved the audience. "That is what makes them so significant and why their biodiversity must be protected." Alexandra Baumgartner added: : "Music, sounds, and words trigger emotions. With this presentation, we are asking people to go to a place they haven’t been before and to use their imagination to create a picture of what this place could look like."  

‘Tany fivelomana’ is a work in development resulting from the collaboration between Antsa Arimalala and Alexandra Baumgartner as part of the art&science residency “On Forests”, a project marking the first collaboration between Istituto Svizzero and the Wyss Academy for Nature. The residency revolves around the theme “The True Value of Forests”, based on the series of events held in the course of 2024, the Wyss Academy Dialogues. The collaboration began in Switzerland, where the artists met during the regional Dialogues in the Emmental valley and visited the Toppwald forest. Further research and fieldwork took them to Madagascar, where they also participated in the regional Dialogue, explored the Masoala rainforest, conducted interviews with stakeholders, and recorded forest sounds. Their research also included a visit to the COP16 Biodiversity Conference in Colombia and the Masoala Hall at Zurich Zoo. The 2-month residency at Istituto Svizzero in Rome finally allowed them to reflect on their experiences and to collaboratively start to develop their art project, also based on the material collected so far.