We’re happy to share that Pihla Pellinen has been awarded the Convivial Foodscapes art & ecology residency, taking place from 1 to 30 November 2026 at Quinta das Relvas, in Branca, Portugal. A collaboration between CONVIVIUM and Quinta das Relvas, the residency explores how artistic practice can renew our relationships with food, heritage, and the living world.

Pihla is a Rotterdam-based scenographer and maker whose work explores a blend of human physiology, biomaterials, and ecological systems. Growing up surrounded by the forests of Finland and now navigating the dense pace of city life, her practice focuses on finding attunement using spatial interventions and sensory awareness to foster presence and re-enchant our relationship with our ecosystem.

Believing that we don’t need to manufacture new “sets” to create profound experiences, her work aims to investigate how we can recover some of our lost engagement and knowledge of terrain, biology, food, and agriculture, primarily through research in soil that encompasses both non-human and human communities.

During the Convivial Foodscapes residency at Quinta das Relvas, she will be exploring “metabolic intimacy” by researching the quality of soil that is part of the farm’s permaculture land. The aim is to turn affects of decay into an interactive bio-haptic experience. Her work utilizes the microbial fuel cells’ electrical conductivity as a tool to translate the data of soil vitality into human sensory perception.