MALI WEIL
curated by Ivana Marjanović, in collaboration with Magdalena Saxer
FR 19.09.25, 19:00 OPENING
with Mali Weil (Elisa Di Liberato, Lorenzo Facchinelli, Mara Ferrieri)
Mali Weil begins with an analysis of the relationships between humans and wolves in the Italian Alps and their significance as a prototypical model of human and other-than-human relationships in the Anthropocene, and proceeds to performatively explore the dimensions of influence of these relations. The Mountain of Advanced Dreams is a visionary project that foresees a society of future, which institutes inter-species diplomacies. By advancing laws, politics, rituals, mythology, as well as education, albeit not without conflict, humans have managed to change their way of life. Mali Weil presents the two channel installation Rituals along with performative projects such as School of Interspecies Diplomacies and Werewolfish Studies, artistic objects and “artefacts” of the new world; in doing so Mali Weil contributes to imagining new forms of cohabitation. Here, the human is no longer a privileged actor who simply devours.
The Mountain of Advanced Dreams brings projects into the exhibition space, which give a glimpse into late 21st century society where interspecies diplomacy has emerged due to the ecological crisis of the 20th century.
This project approaches existence in a manner that does not view death as the opposite of life, but a transition. Here, humans have previous or future lives in which they had been, or will become, beasts and other-than-human beings. By researching ancient mythologies and diverse cultural traditions, Mali Weil goes beyond death as a contemporary taboo and posits it as a contact zone within a world that holds kinship as its core value. Although the starting point of this art project was research on the juridical history of human-animal (man-wolf) interaction, its output does not solely rely on what is understood as “rational”, scientific or political in the genesis of human culture. Instead, the dream realm, mystical practices, animism, ancient mythology, pre-Christian vernacular traditions that have practiced interspecies relations since time immemorial, contribute to this artistic practice as a world making. As the artists state: “The Mountain of Advanced Dreams understands “dream” as a relational space and an imaginative tool to create possible worlds where various forms of interspecies diplomacies, laws and politics are already established and performed”1.
As we can see in the two-channel film Rituals (2023), different legal and mystical rites initiate interspecies diplomats into remote mountain regions. Devouring and offering themselves to be devoured, during or after their lives, the diplomats of this future world disengage with the hierarchy of species that positions humans as exceptional, and human culture as exploitative. Understanding and appreciating other-than-humans as ecological partners enabled humans to overcome seeing other forms of life solely as resources for their own immediate survival.
By becoming the beings of metamorphosis, bending between worlds, some of these diplomats reach altered states and became able to switch between planes of reality in order to bring humans closer to the “otherness” of the non-human world. They engage in reciprocal interactions with other-than-humans and alter aspects of themselves and their perception (for instance, through shape-shifting practices) to better understand and support the non-human world. The diplomats’ task is to work to create the best conditions of existence for as many living beings as possible, and to prevent one being or community from taking more than it offers from a territory. As diplomatic body, these diplomats do not represent individual beings or communities, but complex assemblages, i.e. sets of organisms, who inhabit specific territories (cenacle) and live in dependent relations, i.e. “vital interconnection” (Braidotti), to other living and “non-living” entities (water, earth etc.), and as part of the “vibrant matter” (Bennett).
Among different ritualistic practices, the last chapter in the film Rituals shows the technique of ecstasy through oscillation, which is believed to unlock alternate states of consciousness. Oscillation derives from the ancient Greek tradition of renewing the connection between the living and the dead. The ancient Greek Dionysian salutation ‘Eis Oros’ that the diplomats use in the film serves as a call to transcend human reality (‘Eis Oros’ means ‘To the Mountain!,’ ‘To the Heights!).
Mali Weil designed a number of artistic objects that also serve as ritual objects or insignias of the interspecies diplomats such as the DIVINA ET DEVORATOR tapestry (2023) or IMAGO (2023-2024) ceremonial pins or daggers, the IMAGO BOOK | INTIMACY AND METAMORPHOSIS (2025) which is both a ceremonial cloak and textile book. The project further includes a book, The Mountain of Advanced Dreams (2023), which is an in depth documentation of the artistic material and theoretical elaborations. The book brings us closer to that future world that is not only sketched out, but also imagined in detail (for instance, in the chapter Lexicon of Interspecies Diplomacies).
Another aspect of the project is the ongoing School of Interspecies Diplomacies and Werewolfish Studies, presented in the show as both an archive of learning materials and a performative promotional space for future iterations. In the lecture performance “For a Universal Diplomatic Training Cirriculum,” Holda K. Rebane (Head of the School of Interspecies Diplomacies and Werewolfish Studies), elaborates: “Diplomacy means accepting that the place of dialogue and negotiation is the same as the place of mutual devouring. It involves mouths, teeth, tongues and the violent urge to bite and swallow the other and be bitten and swallowed in turn. Divina et Devorator – divine and may you be devoured – is the school’s motto. It is what we, anthropos, should do as we find our new place in the living community we cohabit with.”2
Mali Weil’s complex interdisciplinary project The Mountain of Advanced Dreams combines a range of different spheres of artistic production from film, performance, visual arts, design, to dialogues with scientific disciplines of anthropology, law, philosophy, biology, ecology and mystical traditions. Through creating hybrid artistic forms and aesthetic language that travels between past and future, Mali Weil proposes a daring vision.
Text: Dr.in Ivana Marjanović
Sources:
1. Mali Weil, www.maliweil.org/the-mountain-of-advanced-dreams
2. Mali Weil, The Mountain of Advanced Dreams, postmedia books, 2024.
Mali Weil, Rituals. The Mountain of Advanced Dreams. Two-channel video, 2021.
Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Duke University Press, 2009.
Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman, (p 71), Polity, 2013.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Mali Weil is an artistic platform established by Elisa Di Liberato, Lorenzo Facchinelli and Mara Ferrieri, based in Trentino Alto Adige South Tyrol (IT).
Through a layered and expanded practice, she develops a performative research that investigates spaces and modes of presenting political imaginations of ecological and political issues, but also of the role and responsibility of individuals within social and urban space.
Her visual production ranges from performance to product and speculative design, from editorials to film, in addition to curatorial projects and workshops that create open and itinerant schools, participatory and relational set-ups, providing platforms for discussion and exchange.
Her work has been shown at prestigious institutions and events, including Hamburger Bahnhof, La Triennale di Milano, GAMeC, MART Museum, MUSE Science Museum, Milano Design Week, Centrale Fies, PAV -- Parco Arte Vivente, Museo Nazionale della Montagna, Circolo del Design in Turin, SAAL Biennaal Tallinn, Trento Film Festival, Museo MAXXI, Venice Design Biennial during the Venice Architecture Biennale.
EVENTS DURING THE EXHIBITION PERIOD
EVENT
04.10.2025
ORF LANGE NACHT DER MUSEEN
MEHR ERFAHRENORF
PERFORMANCE
08.11.2025, 19:00
CURRICULUM DER SCHOOL OF INTERSPECIES DIPLOMACIES AND WEREWOLFISH STUDIES
FROM MALi WAIL AS PART OF THE PREMIERENTAGE
MEHR ERFAHREN
