Context & format:
Rough Weather Network is the Racconigi pilot of PLACE, developed by B. Bordoni and Nat Skoczylas in collaboration with Norwegian Landscape Theatre (NLT). The project responds to Parco Castello Racconigi not as an empty site to be redesigned, but as a landscape already shaped by multiple histories, regulations and tensions. In the pilot documentation, Racconigi is described as a place where cultural heritage, ecological processes and questions of maintenance meet in a particularly complex way: the park is already regulated as a recreational park, historical site and nature reserve, and the pilot therefore focuses less on proposing new permanent uses than on exploring how these overlapping conditions can be understood, discussed and mobilised through artistic and social practices. Rather the artists has involved themselves in various existing initiatives and used gardening skills as a social practice to connect, share knowledge and ideas.
This orientation explains the specific character of the Racconigi festivity. Rather than centring on spectacle or on a visible physical transformation of the park, Rough Weather Network works through dialogue, exchange, mapping and observation. The mentoring process identified the pilot as one that embeds sustainability in the building of a lasting network, and it stressed the importance of transparent communication with stakeholders and of avoiding promises of easy or “magical” solutions. By building conversations, sharing ideas and initiatives, it seeks to bridge various initiatives and create resilience in staying in the trouble together.
Final program:
The first final event takes place on 24 April 2026 as a stakeholder workshop at the Racconigi Library under the title “Pirate Gardening in Rough Weather.” It is conceived as a space for deeper discussion and knowledge exchange with relevant stakeholders from Racconigi and the surrounding area. The workshop is framed by themes such as gardening, food sovereignty, ecofeminism, care, resilience and solidarity across geographies and times. Its program begins with a welcome and introduction to PLACE and Rough Weather Network by B. Bordoni, Nat Skoczylas and Tormod Carlsen of NLT. After that, the round table “Thorns and troubles” opens a first session focused on observing, naming and systematizing the challenges faced locally. After a break, “Speculative Futures” follows as a second round table dedicated to imagining new strategies for place resilience and common care. The workshop concludes at 19:45 with “Stars and surprises,” a closing exchange with a special guest and informal time for further conversation.
The second final event takes place on 25 April 2026 as the public gathering “Wild Species and Spaces of Racconigi: An Affective Cartography Walk.” Beginning in front of Racconigi Castle, the event invites local inhabitants, artists, researchers and collaborators to explore the town through a collective walk shaped by many voices. The walk includes contributions from the Rough Weather Network and from ethnobotanist Francesca Castagnetti, who shares knowledge about local plants and so-called “weeds,” while the broader structure depends on the memories, observations and place-connections contributed by participants themselves. At 13:00, the event continues with collective map-making, shared conversation and food. In this way, the public festivity combines observation, storytelling, ethnobotanical knowledge and convivial gathering, making local experience an active part of the program rather than a secondary audience response.
Intended impact at local level:
At local level, Rough Weather Network aims first to build relationships in a context where the park has become associated with difficulty, limited resources and competing ideas about what should be preserved, restored or allowed to remain wild. Instead of adding another design proposal to an already overburdened situation, the pilot seeks to turn these frictions into a starting point for community reflection and exchange. Its intended impact is therefore strongly social: to encourage stakeholders to connect with one another, to exchange knowledge, and to imagine how gardening, soil-work, local activism and cultural practice can support new forms of sustainable placemaking.
The intended impact is also ecological and educational. Through the public walk and its focus on wild species, ethnobotanical knowledge and non-human care practices, the Racconigi events aim to increase awareness of local biodiversity and to help participants recognize the value of plants, spaces and ecological processes that may otherwise remain unnoticed. At the same time, the stakeholder workshop connects local concerns to wider European and transnational perspectives on permaculture, resilience and solidarity, reinforcing the idea that Racconigi is part of a broader field of experimentation in how culture and nature can be held together.
In longer perspective, the project seeks to regenerate pride, hope and stewardship around the park while laying the foundations for future collaboration beyond the immediate pilot phase. The pilot summary repeatedly emphasizes durability through
networks, exchanges and further development rather than through a one-off installation. For this reason, the local impact of the Racconigi festivity lies not only in the two events themselves, but in their capacity to strengthen local commitment, connect Racconigi to other initiatives, and support a longer-term model of shared care that may continue through new partnerships, future funding and community-led action.
1. Shared Perspective on Local Impact
Although the three Landscape Festivities take different forms and respond to distinct local conditions, they converge around a shared ambition at the heart of PLACE: helping citizens move from experiencing the environment as abstract space to engaging with it as meaningful place, shaped by memory, participation, ecological awareness and care. In this sense, the intended local impact of the festivities lies not only in the final public events themselves, but in the wider processes of reconnection, placemaking and shared stewardship that the project has set in motion.
Across the three pilots, the festivities are designed to strengthen local belonging by inviting residents, artists, students, stakeholders and visitors to participate actively rather than remain passive spectators. In Budapest, this means reducing alienation around Bethlen Square by turning it into a shared community place through children’s mapping, student involvement, roundtable discussion and collective workshops. In Brussels, repeated encounters at Donderberg deepen connection through walking, listening, making and gathering, while in Racconigi the workshop and affective cartography walk encourage people to exchange knowledge and build relations around care, resilience and mutual support. Taken together, the three programs show how public artistic formats can help rebuild social connection through a direct relationship with place.
The festivities also activate green space culturally and ecologically at the same time. Common Ground presents Bethlen Square as a small-scale urban laboratory where artistic practice supports environmental education, greening and public dialogue. Weaving Place approaches Donderberg through eco-somatic practices, seasonal workshops, exhibition, slow walks, collective cooking and concert, making care visible through embodied and communal experience. Rough Weather Network does so through dialogue, ethnobotanical learning, storytelling and collective map-making, encouraging participants to notice the ecological value of plants, memory and more-than-human life. In all three cases, culture functions not as an addition to the site, but as a way of interpreting, inhabiting and caring for it.
Finally, the three festivities are intended to leave behind more than a temporary programme. Budapest proposes methods and ecological solutions that can inform future urban development, Brussels emphasises the longer-term relations built with neighbours, students, artists and local stakeholders, and Racconigi seeks to strengthen durable networks of care, pride and resilience around the park. Viewed together, the shared local impact of the three Landscape Festivities can therefore be understood as social, cultural and ecological at once: they deepen belonging, make environmental care tangible, and support a longer-term sense of responsibility for each site beyond the life of the pilot itself.