Olimpia Hruska
The island that’s there

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The Ostrov is a lesser God
The Ostrov is the name given to a piece of land above the hills that slopes southwest towards
the sea, behind Massa Marittima in upper Maremma. It’s a wooded and windswept place.
These woods are a place where conventional reality loses its balance, but still there’s the relentlessness of nature and its unwavering recurring cycles, to a lesser extent in the woods,
as they’re far from farmlands. But nature isn’t standard, we have to ask ourselves what we’re fighting for and find the way to get it done.
These long-abandoned woods, mere natural surroundings on the Tyrrenian Coast with Mediterranean flora and fauna, are now becoming a park. The trails carved into the dense brush, entangled lines that are distinct or broken, link a world to meaningful spaces and scenic settings.
Centenarian trees have again found their place, the pollinators have returned.
There’s not a soul on the paths, except for fleeting appearances of deer and wild boar.
We only want to save and conserve by transforming situations to highlight the conceivable scenic settings.
The difference between the woods and a park is that in the latter we are never facing nature,
but are always immersed in it.
A steep and stony olive grove at the edge of the woods borders a garden, a lemon orchard,
an artichoke field, ancient fig and fruit trees.
We see the sadness of abandoned adjacent spaces, reminders of industry since forgotten. Indifference or inability to envision and save the beauty that could give more visibility and visits
to a territory that’s currently invisible.