We spend a few more days with @bau_southtyrol in preps for our summer residency. We will stay up in Ashbach, in an old village school building that has been renovated and now hosts visiting school groups and others travelers. Staying there for three weeks, we set up a studio where we can proces locally sourced linen, wool, wood shavings and grasses into soft border pieces, that invite to come closer, slow down and melt into the surrounding landscape. We have been collecting stories of the threshold between forest and meadow, of people, animals and plants within the ecotones that show us how to merge with different ecosystems, cultures and rythms. What happens when we let go of the border between us and the meadow, between inside and outside, between being a host and being a guest. Will we take off our shoes, will we listen more closely, can we embody where we are? Through touch, smell and taste we are inviting a slowdown in the threshold, to forget who we are and to remember what is part of us 🌀 very thankfull for our hosts @bau_southtyrol as well as these great spirits sharing stories: weaver Herman Kühebacher on slowness and return, tree resin collector Heinz Weger on healing with trees and Cornelia Larcher showing us the colors of plants. he residency is part of the two-year project Pastoral Twilight: Initiatives for Rural Cultures, developed by BAU with ARE: @les__woods (Czech Republic) and @verpejos (Lithuania) and funded by the European Union.
REST / ERBA
Food / Walk / Talk
Sunday, 17 May, 2026
REST, Mirns
11:00 – 14:00
ERBA returns to REST after a season of dormancy.
Last winter, ceramic vessels were filled with traces of the landscape: soy bricks absorbing the barn’s microbiome and the last seasonal greens tucked together with stories of preservation. Now, we come together again to reopen them. The vessels will be unpacked to see what has changed: their textures, colors, scents, and tastes. The contents will be transferred into smaller containers and the vessels will be prepared for their next cycle of transformation.
Following this process, we will sit down for a shared lunch. ERBA will cook using seasonal elements, offering a tasting that moves across different times and places. Alongside the practical actions of opening and preserving, we explore the relation between clean and hygiene, understood not as the removal of all life, but as a situated practice of care, coexistence with microbial worlds, and the notion of collaboration as opposed to control.
We warmly invite you!
Lunch is €25 per person.
Sign up or get in touch via DM or e-mail [email protected]
Seats are limited.
Meet one of the guest speakers for the Food and Art altMA 2026–2028: Studio ERBA
@studio_erba
Studio ERBA, a trans-local food studio by Philipp Kolmann & Suzanne Bernhardt.
For the past three years, Philipp and Suzanne have collaborated as a more-than-human collective and trans-local food studio, exploring the histories, geographies, and cultures of food to create site-specific experiences that engage all senses and foster care for people and land. They are currently reviving ancient food preservation techniques, researching orchard culture and forgotten fruit trees, and offering consulting, workshops, and educational programs for institutions and organisations across Europe.
Applications are now open until March 29th. LAST 5 DAYS TO APPLY!!
🫛 Through the link in our bio. #thegramounce #foodart #alternativeeducation #foodresearch
BAU Residency • ERBA • 2026
EN/
We have just concluded a week of explorations in the South Tyrolean landscape together with ERBA (Philipp Kolmann & Suzanne Bernhardt). We walked through snow, smelled flowering bushes, and visited farmers, scientists, fruit orchards, pastures, and forests alongside the artists selected for the Pastoral Twilight residency.
During a talk at the Faculty for Design and Arts at the University of Bolzano ERBA gave an insight into their practice.
This summer, ERBA will return to spend time in the hamlet of Rio Lagundo/Aschbach, exploring the ecotone where forest meets meadow—a threshold for reimagining dwelling through making, eating, and moving together.
We are excited to see what their research will lead to... 👀 Stay tuned!
In the meantime, explore their work ➜ link in bio.
This year’s BAU residency is part of the project 𝙋𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙏𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩: 𝘐𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 held in collaboration with the organisations ARE Woods (Czech Republic) and Verpėjos (Lithuania).
The Pastoral Twilight project is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the EACEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
In cooperation with the municipality of Algund / Lagundo and their project @werkstottschual_aschbach@studio_erba@les__woods@verpejos@basisvinschgau@campus_tranhumanza@unibz_designxart
1 – 10: Photo by @elisapezza , Courtesy of BAU
#BAU #BAUResidency #Residency
Receiving spring on the edge between forest and meadow! Last week we spend roaming around the hills and valleys in Sud Tirol together with @bau_southtyrol to understand how these highlands are shaped by the movement of animals, people and plants. We visited the trance humance center to learn about the recent @unesco label recieved for transhumance movement in this region, as well as learning how this movement has shaped and shifted the landscape and culture in the last decades. We also talked to farmers, forest management, researchers and visited many sites of moving meadows and crawling forests. We had lovely conversation over shared meals, and visited our summer residence up in a recently renovated village school in Ashbach, where we will stay this summer for three weeks to share our findings with an audience. Very thankfull for all the people that generously fed us with stories and to BAU for being such a great host! We will continue with the topic of guesting and hosting in these highlands, moving with animals, tree lines, grass cuttings and village thresholds, more to come! 🌀 The residency is part of the two-year project Pastoral Twilight: Initiatives for Rural Cultures, developed by BAU with ARE: @les__woods (Czech Republic) and @verpejos (Lithuania) and funded by the European Union.
We are pleased to invite you to this artist talk organized by the Master in Critical Creative Practices and the Master in Eco-Social Design in cooperation with BAU:
Feeding Fields, Moving Meadows by ERBA
Taking place on Thursday, 12th March 2026 at 6.30 PM in F0.03.
During the artist talk, @studio_erba will present their artistic practice and the research project they are currently developing for @bau_southtyrol Residency 2026, part of the two-year international project Pastoral Twilight: Initiatives for rural cultures co-funded by the European Union. At the center of their inquiry is the exploration of the ecotone where forest meets meadow, understood as an ecological and symbolic threshold from which to reimagine dwelling through making, eating, and moving together. The project interweaves research on ancestral preservation techniques and orchard cultures in order to reflect on the ecological and cultural transformations of South Tyrol’s pastoral landscape.
Founded by Philipp Kolmann (AT, 1989) and Suzanne Bernhardt (NL, 1988), ERBA is a more-than-human collective that weaves together stories, ecologies, and culinary practices to rethink care through place and ritual. Their practice honors plant wisdom, multispecies solidarity, and the subtle rituals that sustain relationships across time.
We hosted a gathering at @rest_earth to mark the ending of our year of research at @vhdg.kunst - By collectively cleaning, shredding, cutting and storing the last greens of the season, as well as submerging soy bricks into brine that have been hanging in the barn absorbing its microbiome. Slow processes of transformation, while we shared storing stories, followed by in intimate shared meal full of reduced flavors seasoned with memories of the surrounding landscape. A soft ending, wrapped in the woolen blankets that we needle felted with the help of @tinekewadn Grazing in the cold winds that pushed us together, rubbing our wool against each other, can we taste this place?
Maybe with time… The bellies of our ceramic vessels are filled and placed outside, resting over winter, slowly transforming, inviting us to be patient 🌀 We thank our warm and generous hosts Arnout and Saskia, not only sharing their place, but also their presence with endless curiosity, humor and hands on approach, submerged in the beautiful complexity of the many relations their place is and is becoming! The images were made by our dear friend @paula_prats 🩵 many thanks to VHDG that invited us to roam the Frisian landscape, it only feels like a beginning 🧺
BAU Residency • ERBA • 2026
EN/
We are delighted to close the year with an announcement that makes us truly proud: ERBA has been selected as the artists for the BAU Residency 2026!
Their application stood out among the 97 candidacies we received through the
international open call held as part of the Pastoral Twilight project.
Founded by Philipp Kolmann (AU, 1989) and Suzanne Bernhardt (NL, 1988), ERBA is a more-than-human collective that weaves together histories, ecologies and cuisines to reimagine care through place and ritual. Rooted in the belief that landscapes are living archives, ERBA's practice honors the wisdom of plants, multispecies solidarity and the subtle rituals that sustain relationships across time. Through projects such as reviving ancient food preservation techniques and cultivating orchard culture, they create site-specific interventions, ranging from shared meals and communal fermentations to woven shelters, that honor the ecotones between forest and clearing, between farm and meadow, between past
and future.
During their month long residency ERBA will spend time in the small hamlet Aschbach / Rio Lagundo and explore the ecotone, where forest meets meadow, as a threshold for reimagining dwelling through acts of making, eating, and moving together. Building on their research into orchard cultures and ancestral preservation techniques, they will investigate food-based practices and embodied forms of dwelling and how they can become methods for perceiving and responding to ecological and cultural change in South Tyrol's transforming pastoral landscape.
This year’s BAU residency is part of the project Pastoral Twilight: Initiatives for rural cultures co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the EACEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
In cooperation with the municipality of Algund / Lagundo and their project @werkstottschual_aschbach
1-3: Courtesy of ERBA
Today is the final event of Uncommon Fruit project, with only feels as a beginning! The anticipation of flowers, of leaves, of fruits, of juice, of sweetness, of acidity, pushed us into diffrent territories. We collected stories within the ecotones; the cracks between the forrest, the village and the valley. Those stories turned into flavors that invite us to become more liquid! Today we serve a menu that celebrate the fluidity of these terroirs: 🌀🌀🌀 Between the orchard and the vine valley, a story of terroir unfolds: fruits ripen, grapes swell and wild pigs arrive to claim their share. ERBA invites you to explore a meeting of the cultivated and the untamed. Through taste and conversation, we’ll look at what happens when nature ignores our fences and joins the feast. A playful reflection on coexistence, appetite and generosity, served with a glass of something from the valley and a bite from the orchard. This tasty encounter is the final event by ERBA, hosted by Suzanne Bernhardt and Philipp Kolmann, who researched fruit tree culture in the valley, the village and the forest over the last two years. The event takes place in the Orchard Pod Skalcoby Gregor Božič and sets the scene for the flavors: we start with a walk around the orchard and end with a tasting of the place.
Amino, Anima, Umami, currently on view @vhdg.kunst - between meadows grazed, mown and overgrown, we collected stories of grasslands in transformation. Long-lost pastoral traditions have made way for squared monocultures of raaigrass, bordered by bewildered ancestor grasses that still linger at the edges. Can those borders become porous again? Might the movement of ancient pastoralists and the rhythms they followed inspire new ways of thinking, tasting and tending? What happens when we allow a plant-based perspective to guide our sense of tradition, care and culinary memory? As a translocal food studio, we move between fields, kitchens and ecologies. During our residency in Friesland, we followed the seasonal movement of plants, animals and people, meeting local food traditions and observing the changing functions of fields and meadows. Our method is one of grazing—both literal and metaphorical. Picking bites. Collecting seeds. Listening closely. Re-chewing stories. Together with others, we ask what futures might grow from these grasslands in flux. In the exhibition you”ll be guided by taste and touch! For the wool felted blanket’s we collaborated with @tinekewadn / for the oxidized bronze grass pins we worked with the amazing @juliabocanet / and our dear friends @morlokgrislis Julica & Juris helped us find the right shapes and shaded for the fermentation vessels, a beautiful play between handbills and turned clay coved in ashglaze and slips. Very thankfull to work with you all! The cookies are made with a whey caramel, the whey we picked up from @doetiesgeiten - always nice to share stories of grazing 🧺
REST/ ERBA
On December 14, ERBA will host a gathering around food, storage and foraging at REST in Friesland.
The food studio ERBA – Suzanne Bernhardt and Philipp Kolmann – travelled last summer through the Frisian Landscape with Reizend Atelier of VHDG collecting stories of grasslands in transformation. They also visited REST, a research initiative centered on historic plot of land situated in the countryside. Through situated and embodied projects on site REST connects narratives from a multiplicity of disciplines.
In ERBA's current exhibition Amino, Anima, Umami now on view at VHDG in Leeuwarden, they present these stories through a series of works. About the building blocks of our food, fermentation in ceramic vessels, the interconnectedness of humans, plants, and animals, and woolen blankets as carriers of recollection about the Frisian landscape and new life. These works will guide us during this event. Together we will store a landscape, taste time, become a herd.
Where:
REST - Wieldyk 8, Mirns
Program:
11:00 Welcome at REST
11:30 Collective fermentation with ERBA
12:30 Lunch
14:00 Grazing walk
15:00 Soft ending
No experience needed. Everyone is welcome!
Sign up or get in touch via DM or [email protected].
Participation is free of charge.
