Ethereal Grounds at Mango Trails is a process based residency curated by Alice Novello dedicated to envisioning new paths of communications between artists, members of the Mango Trails project and the surrounding landscapes. In these 10 days, based at a Mango Trails a cultural and co-living project in Kottamadagu, Tamil Nadu, the six artists explored the theme of Conversations With the Land (and how they answer back) by working somatically with the different elements earth, water, air, fire and space, and from these bodily conversations developed or informed their own project and research.

We walked in the jungle looking for elephant traces; borrowed clay from a pit, and then gave it back; covered ourselves in mud and followed the traces and the secrets hidden in our skin; listened to the sounds of the path between villages, and the wisdom of the elderly that wanted to take care of us (and then we listened again and again); we closed our eyes under the mango trees and learned to breathe differently; we painted with the soil’s colors and had the sun showing us the real shape of leaves; we swam and turned into aquatic thinking;  we wrote fire stories and when the power went off in the village we read them to each other.