Silvia Margaria has designed an installation that intertwines Occitan popular fantasy with the environment, creating a pathway that invites participation by following a trail connecting the Filatoio (silk mill) to the ‘Acquaviva’ Biopark in Caraglio.

Thanks to naturalist guide Noemi Silvestro and storyteller Caterina Ramonda, the narrative of ‘L’Escondut’ was conceived. It is a text accessible through QR codes that animates the trail, found near small red eyes painted on over a hundred trunks of ash and wild cherry trees. These trees feature characteristic eye-shaped growths on their bark.

This expansive work encourages the observer to focus and seek out a chain of gazes while walking and looking upwards. The ‘escondut’ conceals itself and watches us from within the vegetation, drawing inspiration from traditional tales of imaginary wild beings, sometimes mischievous, sometimes kind. It is an enigmatic Occitan entity, visible only through the eyes. “…this is how you perceive it: if you’re receptive to new experiences, if you choose to proceed even without knowing where the path may lead, if you’re prepared to risk a fall, if you believe that even concealed things have significance. Then you discover and see the ‘escondut’, and it observes you,” the narrative reveals.

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