2025
Pilgerland: Solar Incubator was a collective, process-based work in three acts emerged as a living and open framework designed for exploring the relationship between Novohradské hory communities and its landscape. We journeyed through the landscape — gathering plants — while also gathering impulses, sensations, experiences, stories and visions. We tried to rethink the landscape we know by heart and explored and mapped familiar places in unfamiliar ways.
We took a look behind the scenes of the art of natural dyeing and, together, created the first layer of an archive of impulses, promises, and visions for Pilgeland activities in next years. The jars were sealed and placed in the sun and time, where they continued to ferment, mature, blend, and slowly ripen.
The landscape macerated along with our brief journey and neighborhood gathering. How deep was the final shade from nettle, lupine, greater celandine, and tansy? And how vibrant was the color scale of the Novohradské hory in Pohoří na Šumavě and Pohorská Ves?
Series of workshop during 2025 was part of long-term project Pilgerland run by Krajina Novohradska in collaboration with European Capital of Culture Budweis 2028.
Pilgerland is a project that aims to build and spread a soft version of nature conservation in connection with the spiritual experience of the landscape. The pilgrimage landscape of the Novohradské Mountains is intended to be a widely understandable concept that will outlive the Pilgerland project. Pilgerland is a kind of incubator for the pilgrimage landscape – it chooses art as a tool for igniting and spreading the idea.
Photos by Mikuláš Vinař
