We develop an interdisciplinary body of work entitled Fragile and Persistent Life in Times of Ruin that takes as its case study the Pontine Marshlands in Southeast Rome. This Roman environmental space of land ruins, water drainage, resource development, and reclamation is an important example of wetland history and one of our main sites of artistic ecological research development during our five months stay in Rome. Building upon the findings of Walsh, Haas and Attema who address how elite political control historically contributed to the fragility and decimation of the Pontine wetlands (2018), we elaborate an environmental palimpsest approach to consider the creative human and more than human resources that exist and persist beyond anthropogenic intervention. Our objective is to create a body of movement research to include published co-written essays, a working draft of a new performance, and more.

The photograph of Faye Driscoll was taken by Beatrice Borgers.