18/08/2026
On August 20th, group 1 of the 2026 CRA residents: Elisa Strinna and Rinke Joosten will be giving presentations about their work and research period in Arita. It will be held from 18:30 till 20:00 at Arita Sera’s Gallery Seji.
Elisa Strinna has spent the past year and a half developing Journey Through the Outer Darkness, a project examining today’s rhetorics of extraterrestrial expansion and the promise of a “multiplanetary” future — joining a simulated Mars mission at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah between 19 of April to May 2nd 2026.
As part of her research, Elisa researched Astragalus, a legume found in the surrounding desert and chosen as the symbol of the mission patch. The plant’s symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and its long history of medicinal use in Asian traditions, opened a new line of inquiry into adaptation as relationship rather than protection.
During her residency at Creative Residency Arita, Elisa gave this line of inquiry its first material form. She translated the morphology of the Astragalus flower into a porcelain mask, made using the Nerikomi technique, in which coloured clays are layered and sliced so the pattern runs through the body of the material rather than sitting on its surface.
Arita also opened new ground. Elisa began studying climbing plants and vines found in Japan, and the strategies through which they survive by attaching to, growing alongside, and depending on other plants — adaptation as something that emerges through relationship rather than individual capacity.
The whole project shifts the question of adaptation away from occupying an environment, and towards learning how to inhabit it.
The Future Publishing / Studio The Future Mondriaan Fonds Stimuleringsfonds
