Evija Kristopane ~ Forget me not
Evija Kristopane's "Forget me not" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 1, 2024 as one of 38 AEROPONIC ACTS of CHAMELEON ORBIT curated by Elisa Giuliani & Giulia Crispiani.
Here you will find the documentation of Louis Evija Kristopane's presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by Bethany Crawford and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.
Forget me not
Evija Kristopane's question: What would Joe do?
Evija's introduction: “We looked at him and we knew there was another kind of life: wild, riotous, jolly. He opened a door and showed us paradise. He’d planted it himself, ingenious and thrifty. I don’t believe in model lives, but even now, a quarter century on, I ask myself, what would Derek do?”—Olivia Laing, Introduction to "Modern Nature" by Derek Jarman, 1982
“Paradise is, first of all, a garden. A garden in which everything we need is there for the taking.”—Joe Hollis, 1962
For a tour of the Paradise Greenhouse, enter through the stairs in the courtyard.
Bethany's report: The performance begins with the performer seated in a wheelbarrow at the center of the space, holding a microphone and a book on their lap. From this position, they share personal reflections on family, memory, and the deeply symbolic act of tending to cemeteries. Through stories of visiting cemeteries with their mother, grandparents, and family friends, the performer draws connections between the spaces of the past and the relationships cultivated in the present. Cemeteries, the performer suggests, are more than places of death; they are sites of growth and care. Flowers growing among the gravestones symbolize new life nurtured by the soil of loss. The act of cleaning and tending to a family plot—raking the soil, creating lines, disrupting and reforming them—is a meditative process, both practical and metaphorical. It becomes an opportunity to nurture connections with family and with oneself.
The performer reads passages from a diary, weaving anecdotes about family, lessons learned from a family friend who was a botanist, and the joy of nature passed down through generations. Gardening is framed as a multigenerational practice, imbued with politics. The performer reflects on gardening as a form of resistance—an act of beauty and care that contrasts with the machinery of modern life.
This connection between gardening and cemeteries raises questions about the transcendental ideas of paradise and heaven. The performer invites the audience to consider how we are reborn in the flowers and plants that emerge from the soil where we rest. Gardening becomes a metaphor for care, attention, and the cyclical relationship between life and death.
The cemetery’s ecosystem is also explored: Latvian cemeteries, in particular, lack inbuilt nature, meaning each family’s plot reflects the care given to it. This interconnectedness—where untended plots can spread weeds to neighboring ones—highlights the shared responsibility within the landscape, as well as the individuality of how families envision their "paradise." Each plot becomes a reflection of personal taste and effort, cross-pollinating with others nearby.
The performer recalls learning through observation, watching their grandmother tend the cemetery plot, a process that emphasized the tacit knowledge of showing rather than telling. Yet, they reflect on the fragility of memory and practice, noting how they learned to show and to tell, but somehow forgot how to do.Through its intimate storytelling, the performance uses the act of gardening in cemeteries to explore themes of care, memory, and the politics of tending to life and death.
Ramon Amaro: Ramon began his response commenting on how he works at a design museum so loved the performers use of the wheelbarrow as a chair. From this humorous note, he transitioned into heartfelt gratitude, thanking the performer for their vulnerable demonstration of oral history and how it shaped their identity in relation to the themes of the performance.
He reflected on his extensive reading about grief, loss, memory, and family but noted that the performance brought a fresh perspective by delving into the ontology of the cemetery. Ramon described this as “fascinating,” highlighting how the performance opened up new ways of thinking about the relationships tied to such spaces. He appreciated how the narrative transitioned from exploring family heritage to offering a deeply personal insight into the performer’s own grief. In doing so, it created a "face-to-face" and ontological relation with death—a certainty in a fragmented and chaotic world.
Ramon observed how the performance evoked the "recursive return of death," a theme he has encountered in many presentations. Yet, here it was uniquely framed: each return to death requires a new act of care, a fresh flower, and a renewed treatment of the soil. This cyclical process, he noted, is experienced repeatedly and powerfully learned transgenerationally. He praised how transgenerational knowledge was transferred in the narrative, not only as a theme but as a methodology for keeping memory alive.
Ramon then posed an essential question: What does it mean to embody these memories? He reflected on the difficulty of sitting in a space of contemplation with one’s family, processing grief, and then transitioning into a space with strangers, inviting them to share in such depth and emotion. He recognized the challenge of entering the space of one’s grief and love and bringing others into that vulnerable state. For Ramon, this was a courageous endeavor, as most people tend to avoid or escape from such moments.
In closing, Ramon encouraged the performer to recognize their own courage in undertaking this project. He urged them to let the soil carry them, just as it carried their family before them. For Ramon, this metaphor of the soil as both a physical and symbolic force resonated deeply, encapsulating the performance’s exploration of memory, loss, and continuity.
Antonia Majaca: Antonina reflected on the performance with admiration, praising the powerful image of the performer intentionally leaving the stage empty, only to fill it with themselves. She noted how the performer’s confidence and ease created a compelling presence within the space.
She connected her reflections to Derek Jarman, specifically his journey of struggling with HIV, facing death, and finding solace and creativity in gardening. Antonina considered the parallels between Jarman’s garden—a place of possibility, magic, and defiance against all odds—and the themes evoked in the performance. For her, the garden served as a metaphor for planetary healing, a space where resilience and enchantment coexist.
This connection led Antonina to emphasize the feminist ethos woven into the performance. She appreciated how the work embraced the idea that feminists are not precious about their tools. Instead, all tools are considered valid, and the focus is on doing what can be done with whatever is available. For Antonina, this practicality and openness align with the act of building a garden—a space that can emerge from even the smallest fragments of care and creativity, infused with magical thinking and possibility.
She referenced a fragment of writing by Isabella de Costa, which touched on issues of social reproduction - then I stepped into the garden, and I saw a plant and that was the project that was to be dealt with. For Antonina, this thinking encapsulated the essence of the performance—recognizing that all tools are ours and that we can rebuild the garden, piece by piece, through attention, care, and an embrace of both the practical and the magical.
Inti Guerrero: Inti reflected on the performance with a critical perspective, admitting to feeling initially confused. The sight of the wheelbarrow in the context of the factory space evoked a classroom for him, an association that was later broken by the narrative. As the performance shifted to focus on family relationships, this disruption reframed his understanding of the work.
He congratulated the curators on their programming structure, noting how the performance followed seamlessly from Bobo’s exploration of maternal feminities to this piece about female family legacy. Inti highlighted a tension in the themes presented, remarking on how queerness is often positioned as anti-family. He questioned how the performer reconciled their exploration of family memory with the escapism that queerness can offer.
Drawing from his own cultural knowledge, Inti referenced the practice in large Indonesian families of burying loved ones in the garden, creating a small hill behind the house. This ritual brought additional meaning to the performance’s engagement with family and space, tying together themes of memory, care, and inheritance.
AEROPONIC ACTS 2024 ~ Chameleon Orbit