Nida Art Colony Residency

In their ongoing research project Latent Accumulations in Nida, Lithuania, environmental media scholar Léa Perraudin and architect Iva Rešetar explore the scales and phases of paraffin debris in this seemingly pristine natural environment. Their fieldwork in Neringa, conducted in collaboration with Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts during a research residency from December 2024 to January 2025, focused on paraffin pollution, engaging the material as unsettled in its movement. They argue that it is precisely the process of phase transition that gives rise to paraffin’s ambiguous status – when it shifts between solid and fluid states, between slow and sudden appearances, and between the events of pollution and the traces they leave behind.

During their residency, they pursued investigative and participatory methods to trace, mediate and showcase these processes at the shifting thresholds of sea and land. As part of the Dutch Art Institute roaming master program, Rešetar and Perraudin taught a workshop on »Patchy Narratives« on site at the COOP study group ~ FOREST INSCRIPTIONS. Their communal walks during January invited participants to collect paraffin residues and to share experiences, local knowledge, and memories of changing landscapes. The walks brought together different voices – of those involved in maintaining Neringa’s environment and witnessing its shifts – revealing a sense of fragility while collectively performing clean-ups as a form of environmental care.

The research process and public programme of Latent Accumulations is documented in video and sound recordings by Anna Luise Schubert. Opening with a roundtable discussion on May 9, these outcomes will be presented in a guest exhibition as part of muddy measures. when wetlands and heritage converse, hosted by the Centre for Advanced Studies inherit. heritage in transformation from 10–31 May 2025 at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin as part of ＿matter festival.

Latent Accumulations is based at the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation) and developed in collaboration with Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts, supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.