Originally commissioned by Pompeii Commitment Archeological Matters, a contemporary art project at the Parco Archeologico di Pompei, curated by Matteo Lucchetti, the starting point for Coltre (Mulch) is Pliny the Younger’s iconic letter to Tacitus describing the eruption of 79 CE, where the cloud emitted from Vesuvius is compared to the shape of a pine tree with an enormous trunk whose branches multiplied in the sky. Migliora draws scenarios in which smoke and lapilli emerge from the mouth of Vesuvius in the form of maritime pines whose needles are deposited under trees like mulch. In this agricultural technique, decaying leaves or other plant debris form a cover that nourishes the roots. Indeed, in each drawing, archaeological fragments are interwoven with new plant and organic forms that aim at the idea of regeneration. A move designed to transform the archaeological heritage into a kind of fertilizer that causes the varied knowledge, which has remained mulched for a long time, to sprout into new forms.
