Introduction

What if the landscape was a theatre? What if art did not represent the environment but allowed us to make it a collective experience? What is at stake today in our relationship to “nature” and its representations, in the relationship between town and country, while climate and resources lead to a new awareness of fragilities and interdependencies?

Shared Landscapes, conceived by Caroline Barneaud / Stefan Kaegi is an artistic getaway, discovering seven newly created open-air pieces—including the premiere of Ari Benjamin Meyers' UNLESS, 2023—through the course of a day. The next prestentation is part of Berliner Festspiele.

UNLESS takes its title from the final lines of Dr. Seuss's children's book The Lorax (1971). One of the earliest pop-culture engagements with environmental issues, The Lorax tells the story of a creature who 'speaks for the trees' and the environment, ending the book with the warning 'UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.'

For Meyers UNLESS is an opportunity to explore the interactions between music, performance, and land art – taking inspiration from important artists of these mediums, such as Robert Smithson, Ana Mendieta and Pauline Oliveros. The work is presented in four parts under individual subtitles that reflect on the specific environmental elements experienced in the settings of the performance, and in the performance itself:

UNLESS (For the tress…)
UNLESS (For the ground…)
UNLESS (For the birds…)
UNLESS (For the air…)

Shared Landscapes – Seven Plays Between Fields And Forests was first presented by Vidy-Lausanne Theater, Lausanne and Festival d'Avignon. In 2024 it will tour to St. Pölten, Milan, Setubal-Lisbon, Ljubljana, and Girona.