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Community mountain expedition, Ioannina-Zagori, 2022

Mountain forest exploration guided by the Epirus Mushroom Society, identifying, collecting, tasting and exhibiting local grown mushroom species.
Community mountain expedition, Some Call Us Balkans, Zagori, Greece, 2022, photography by Tamara de la Fuente, CC BY-SA 4.0
The last stop of the cross-Balkan journey “BLKN Mobile Forum” is the city of Ioannina in Greece, in a programme co-curated by Elli Leventaki, Katerina Zachou and Mariana Ziku with Kumjana Novakova. The SCUB community traveled in the mountainous area of Zagori, to meet the members of the Epirus Mushroom Society, and with them, to start on an expedition through the mountain forest paths for finding, identifying and talking about the local species of mushrooms and beyond.
Community mountain expedition, Some Call Us Balkans, Zagori, Greece, 2022, photography by Tamara de la Fuente, CC BY-SA 4.0
The expedition had us thinking about our relationship with the environment, how to step out of human-centered narratives and how collective practices of care and protection play out in the wider Balkan region.
Community mountain expedition, Some Call Us Balkans, Zagori, Greece, 2022, photography by Tamara de la Fuente, CC BY-SA 4.0
“In order for our actions, both civic and creative, to be trully collective and in the service of all life, we must work in solidarity with the natural world. In order to maintain balance and care and prevent mindless exploitation and the erasure of traditions and practices, the uses of natural resources must be valued by what is compatible, not what is profitable. It comes down to considering nature not as an economic resource but as a common – not a common we own but one we belonged to.”
Farah Hasanbegović, creative communicator of SCUB and film director
12 BLKN Mobile Forum, Ioannina, 2022, Some Call Us Balkans, CC BY-SA 4.0
Community mountain expedition, Some Call Us Balkans, Zagori, Greece, 2022, photography by Tamara de la Fuente, CC BY-SA 4.0
“On this journey we will always have a vivid memory of the warmth with which Vassilis from the Epirus Mushroom Society accompanied us: the kindness in the gesture of the harvest, the scrupulous attention in dusting the roots and turning the mushrooms upside down, the diligence in teaching us how to go and identify the gills, the sponge, the rings that differentiate the hundreds of species that inhabit this geography.”
Chiara Donà, International Relations and Projects Teatro della Toscana
Community mountain expedition, Some Call Us Balkans, Zagori, Greece, 2022, photography by Tamara de la Fuente, CC BY-SA 4.0
The expedition brought together the traveling artists, cultural professionals, communicators and the project’s member partners from the Balkans and Europe, sitting on the same table to eat the collected mushrooms in the welcoming Guest House of Elati, with the guidance of the Epirus Mushroom Society, its members and its president Thanasis Ntinos and the local Cultural Association of the village of Elati.
Community mountain expedition, Some Call Us Balkans, Zagori, Greece, 2022, photography by Tamara de la Fuente, CC BY-SA 4.0
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