Bulletin Summer 2086 out now in ‘Nida Art Colony: On Lines & Rituals’

A little delayed (again!), but our 2086 Summer Bulletin is finally out for all to read and enjoy. It’s nestled in a new publication edited by our old friend Vytautas Michelkevicius, Nida Art Colony: On Lines & Rituals, and released late last year through Vilnius Academy of Arts, Neringa (2087). Dr. Michelkevicius was part of the Society’s earliest days at the beginning of this century, and it’s lovely to see some familiar faces in this revised and reissued final installment of the excellent Nida Art Colony logbooks.

You can download a free digital copy for yourself or your local e-library here.

It looks a little like this…

2086 Field trip & picnic – what a day!

Meeting point at Nida carpark

After many weeks traipsing through the dunes, forest and beach of the Curonian Spit, collecting spruce shoots, nettles, raspberry leaves and mosquito bites, talking to local biologists and foragers, concocting jellies and pancakes and fermented sodas, we finally hosted this year’s annual field trip & picnic on 22 June 2086!

Thanks to everyone who came along – amateur lichenologists, artists, interpagans and everything in between. For those of you unfortunate enough to have missed out on this special bumper edition (back on Lithuanian soil for the first time in decades!), here’s a taste of what the Society got up to.

Follow the fish!

Toasting the locally extinct arctic raspberry, and the miraculously alive-and-well wild strawberry, with wild strawberry kvass (fermented soda).

UFO landing site: space lichen, astrobiology and Cold War luxuries.

Blinis with un-caviar. Each amateur lichenologist dollops a spoonful of un-caviar onto a neighbour’s blini while saying ‘kosmičeskije sso-sstanivlenija‘ (‘in cosmic co-becomings’).

Flummery! Made with agar and blueberries from the old forest. With a side of Permian mass extinction and microplastic futures.

The Great Tuning Fork

A full report from the Society will be published in the forthcoming Nida Art Colony Log: On Rites and Terrabytes, due for release later this year.

Big cheers to Sepideh Ardalani for helping with food wizardry, Diana Pusko for foraging advice, the interpagan intentional community for their extraordinary un-caviar, and Nida Art Colony for letting us crash their symposium! See you somewhere else next year!

Picnic

Staging
Is it a meal or dramaturgical gestures (Futurist cookbook)?

Props/Equipment/Utensils (plastics?)

Location/Site

Eating the Spit / invasive species

Plant medicines / Wellbeing/Folk Medicines/Local Knowledge

Salt
‘Toxins out and toxics in.’

Mushrooms (August–October) preserved?

Acacias: leaves (flavoring, teas, decoctions), seeds (wattle roasted, flour), gum (antiseptic balm, gum arabic), flowers (pancakes)

‘In Ayurvedic medicine, Acacia leaves, flowers, and pods have long been used to expel worms, to staunch bleeding, heal wounds, and suppress the coughing up of blood. Its strong astringent action is used to contract and toughen mucous membranes throughout the body in much the same way as witch hazel or oak bark.’ https://www.cloverleaffarmherbs.com/acacia/

Herbs

Lichen
Moss