On Elisa Manig’s small dairy farm, there is always traffic. And all products, often ordered by loyal customers, are sold the same day. Elisa manages the farm with her father, linking, at the same gentle rhythm, the daily ritual activities: work in the barn, milking, taking the cows out to pasture, making cheese and selling to the public. A refrain from the life of a young peasant woman who is gifted and passionate about her profession.
After studying in the United States which destined her to become a radiologist, Elisa Manig, 27, finally made a completely different choice. In 2019, back in the valleys where she grew up, she created, with the help of her father, the Azienda Agricola Manig, where she raises sixteen cows and six calves to produce milk, cheeses, including mozzarella, and also yogurts. Everything is sold directly at the farm. By favoring the local sale of quality products, and by combining word-of-mouth with clever communication on social networks, Elisa has been able to establish the (good) reputation of her dairy farm.
In the past, around here, they were all peasants. Today, it is a rare profession, which arouses curiosity and fascination, especially when it is practiced by a young woman, and by choice. But I have the feeling that more and more people understand the beauty of agriculture and also aspire to eat well, for their health and the pleasure of taste… It’s hard work, but it also gives a lot of satisfactions and rewards. Every day, I look forward to waking up to find my cows and start the activities…
Series : “Sounds of the Earth”
Through the daily life of four women farmers, this series retraces the peasant culture of the Natisone valleys and the past life of one of its villages: Topolò. Reluctant to the industrialization of agriculture by their very nature, the valleys of Natisone, in Friuli, on the border of Italy and Slovenia, have also been marked by massive emigration. In this deserted territory, where the woods cover land that was once cultivated, four women, of different generations, have chosen to stay or return, to practice agriculture that respects the environment. Raising goats or cows, viticulture, harvesting wild herbs and preparing traditional recipes. The series “The sounds of the earth” accompanies them from dawn to night.
“Sounds of the Earth”a series produced and presented during the 27th edition of the Stazione di Topolò/Postaja Topolove festival, gave rise to listening sessions and collective visual creations with residents and festival-goers.
All the recordings in this series have been the subject of listening sessions, workshops and public presentations within the framework of the 27th International Art Festival Stazione di Topolò / Postaja Topolove. From the daily sounds of women farmers, collected and edited by Monica Fantini and Luca Rullo, artists Elena Rucli and Laura Savina, members of the Robida collective, produced visual creations and led painting workshops with festival-goers. A collective work restored through mosaics, which today illustrate the episodes.
► The festival Station of Topolo/Postaja Topolove
Meetings, concerts, dance, sound installations, listening sessions, readings, conferences, exhibitions… Founded in 1994 by a group of inhabitants who still live there, the international art festival Station of Topolo/Postaja Topolove every summer in July this deserted mid-mountain village, on the border of Italy and Slovenia, transfigures. Welcomed in residence, hundreds of artists from around the world are invited to take over the premises to discuss, create and perform. The artistic proposals of the festival always resonate with the territory and its symbolism, linked to the border, the foreigner, the absence, the omnipresence of wood and the rebirth.
Since 2014, young artists, residing in Topolò and gathered within the collective Robida, join the festival. Combining their attachment to this land with their art, they publish art and poetry reviews − in Italian and Slovenian −, create installations and organize screenings and walks on the secret forest paths around the village.
Listening to the world: a participatory platform for sending sound postcards
Listening to the world is a miniature radio program, re-listened to as a podcast here, but also a participatory sound platform devoted to listening and sound creation. It archives and provides free access to more than 200 sound recordings sent from all over the world, and also offers sound postcards. Each episode of this series is thus declined in sound and digital postcard, composed of a sound and an image, which was inspired to the artists Laura Savino and Elena Rucli by the sound fragments of the daily life of the Natisone valleys. Cards to send from your computer or smartphone, with a personalized message.
Discover the sound postcard linked to this episode here
Production team – Creation unit – RFI
Design and production: Monica Fantini
Sound recording: Monica Fantini and Luca Rullo
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Funded by the IMCAP program of the European Union
The content of this publication reflects the position of the author only and is his sole responsibility. The European Commission assumes no responsibility for any use that may be made of the information it contains.