The publication Robida 11: Orchard/Sadovnjak/Frutteto wants to be a collection of essays, photographic explorations, visual narratives, art projects, and poetic texts all centered on the orchard as landscape and fruit trees as powerful metaphors and living archives of stories and memories. We would be glad to receive contributions in a variety of forms: theoretical texts, artistic research, botanical and scientific texts, diary entries, design, food design and art projects, all contributing to an interdisciplinary and poetic presentation of the proposed topic.

The issue would like to investigate human gestures of care towards trees, collect traces of knowledge and memories, reflect on the climate crisis and its impacts on agriculture, mirror and adhere – also with its editorial production – to the cyclical nature of the seasons and to the fruit tree cycle.

The publication expands and builds upon a project that Robida has been developing since 2024 in collaboration with the Slovenian association Zavod Cepika from Kojsko, just across the border, where our friend Gregor Božič, a film director and researcher of Mediterranean pomology, has established an orchard – a genetic bank preserving ancient fruit varieties from the Goriška Brda region. This orchard stands in contrast to the agroextractivist monoculture that now dominates Goriška Brda, where diverse fruit trees have been eradicated in favor of hyperproductive vineyards. In Topolò, however, a radically different kind of monoculture emerged – one of wildness, where the landscape has been shaped by abandonment. We find this tension between two opposing landscapes – one sculpted for intensive exploitation and the other left to evolve untamed – very inspiring and we are trying to understand what the two opposite landscapes could learn from each other.
Titled Uncommon Fruits, the project goes beyond the conventional focus on fruit as mere product. Instead, it embraces the entirety of the fruit tree – its bark, leaves, roots etc. Through concrete actions in the landscape, interviews, research and culinary experiments – made in an inspiring collab with our friends from Erba, Philipp Kolmann and Suzanne Bernhardt – the project explores fruit trees not just as bearers of fruit but as living organisms deeply entangled with culture, history and the environment.

With Robida 11, the reflections opened by the Uncommon Fruits project will expand and branch out, the extremely contextual actions carried on in the two border landscapes will be able to reach other places and the publication itself will operate as a real seed, dispersed and thus opening questions and reflections that will resonate with other places and fruit landscapes.

wild orchards • traces of abandoned orchards • orchard as tamed forest • animal-fruit coevolution • collaboration with insects and animals • (cross)pollination • inosculation • resilience of autochthonous fruits • soundscape in the orchards • seasonality • water scarcity • the life under fruit trees • sensing fruit • fruit tree herbarium • fruit tree migration • fruit travels • orchards around the world • legends and folklore • stories hidden in fruits • the unexpected beauty of fruits and fruit trees • abundance • fruit as gift • gift economy • practicing agriculture otherwise • botanical (de)colonization • gleaning • harvesting • storing fruits • earth cellar • fermentation • forgotten recipes with fruits • pomology • bark, roots, branches, leaves • landscape care • rituals • crafts connected with fruit and fruit trees • fruits in films • orchard and fruits in literature • linguistic and etymological research on the semantic field of fruit • fruits, fruit trees and orchards representations in art histories • art projects including fruits or orchards • artistic practice as an orchard • fruit tree monoculture • agribusiness vs. agripoetics • solar politics • relations between humans, nature and technology • stories of farmers and orchard care takers • orchard as memory • history of fruit trees and orchards

Format

As always, we welcome a wide range of contributions and encourage diverse formats! Please review the list below carefully, noting the distinction between two types of submissions: those requiring a finished piece and those for which an abstract or a finished piece is expected. We introduced this hybrid open call methodology for some of the categories to give more time for those who need it to delve deeper into their contribution, and at the same time giving the possibility to apply with a finished contribution if you think you don’t need more time! The abstracts and finished contributions will be evaluated at the same time (check the timeline below!) If you are not sure into which category your piece belongs, don’t worry, go with your gut!

Essays

Hardcore theoretical texts or lighter essay formats – both are welcome, especially when grafted with personal stories and cross-pollinated with elements of fiction. Feel free to experiment, don’t forget that, in this issue, the fruit trees are the true protagonists. The essays can be accompanied by visual material. For this kind of contribution we welcome abstracts (max. 2.500 characters + keywords) or complete texts (max. 25.000 characters).

Visual essays

Photographical reportages accompanied by a short story or description, collections of images or photographs, series of drawings and illustration, or even combined all together! For this kind of contribution we request the final piece: send us your collection of images and a brief introduction explaining the concept, story, project etc.

Archive

Visual essays made as collections of images from the history of art, stills from films, old photographs. Or textual archival pieces made only of quotes! For this kind of contribution we request the final piece: send us your collection of images or quotes and a brief introduction explaining the concept.

Conversations

Interviews and correspondences on memories, personal stories and experiences connected to fruit and fruit trees. It’s good if they are accompanied by visual materials! For this kind of contribution we welcome abstracts (max. 2.500 characters + keywords) or also complete texts (max. 25.000 characters).

Projects

Art projects, installations, spatial projects. These contributions may include: text, visual material, sketches, drawings, photos of the final project. We value a lot to see the whole process behind the project! For this kind of contribution we request the final piece.

Travels

Written and/or photo reportages from travels and visits to orchards around the world. They can include interviews or be closer to diary entries. For this kind of contribution we welcome abstracts (max. 2.500 characters + keywords) or also complete texts (max. 25.000 characters).

Practices

“How to…” guides, recipes, prompts for new or forgotten rituals, technical or practical knowledge explained, through visual and written materials. Here we invite you to consider orchards, fruit trees and fruits both in their concreteness or also as metaphors! For this kind of contribution we request the final piece.

The production process of Robida 11 wants to reflect, poetically, in its various steps, the development phases of a fruit tree, thus opening reflections on the temporality of editorial projects and on how much their rhythms can align more closely with the cycles of the seasons.

Germination: publication of the open call

February 6th

Vegetative phase and growth: writing of abstracts or complete/final contributions

February 6th → March 31st

Grafting: selection of abstracts and complete/final contributions

March 31st → April 30th

Flowering & pollination: writing the final contribution (for those who sent an abstract)

April 30th → June 30th

Ripening: editing of the texts, designing and printing of the publication

June 30th → late summer

Seed dispersal & harvest: distribution of the publication and public presentation

autumn 2025

Texts (whether abstracts or final texts): in PDF format.

Image collections (whether visual narratives, archive or images accompanying texts): you can use a swisstransfer link (the link lasts for one month and you don’t need to log in)! We will take care to download it in the right time!

Where abstracts are required, you should send us:

– the abstract (max 2.500 characters)

– keywords (5 to 10)

– a short bio of max. 500 characters

– an example of your writing (in PDF form, no links to online magazines please!)

Where final pieces are required, you should send us:

– your contribution (max. 25.0000 characters)

– keyword (5 to 10)

– a selection of images (the final images we will choose will need to all have captions, be prepared to write them!)

– a short bio of max 500 characters

- File name: Robida 11_Name Surname

- Email object: Robida 11 open call + type of contribution (e.g. essay, travel, conversation…)

- If you want to include images, put them all in a single PDF document as an attachment to the email or, if the file is too big, send it via swisstransfer link.

- Send your proposals to: robidaopencall@gmail.com

Thank you, but we are not looking for:

Whole thesis (please, send us just one chapter!), image collections without introductions, video works or audio works (or other formats unsupported by printed magazine technology).

We welcome pieces in every language!
The editorial board reads:
Italian, Slovene, English, Portuguese (well);
French, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish (kind of).
If you write in a language other than these, accompany your contribution with an abstract in English or a translation in one of the upper languages (for which you have to take care of).

We value a lot of contributions written in minor and minority languages, in an intertwinement of different languages, or in a playful multi-linguistic way.

As many of you already know, we don’t pay writers and contributors. And this makes us sad. None of the editorial board is paid for the work at the magazine either. Robida magazine is an extremely fragile being and we barely manage to cover printing costs for such a big book as she is! We hope you understand. We can promise to read your proposals and contributions very carefully and edit them together with you with passion and joy!
At the end Robida magazine is mostly a big group of friends who get to know each other by participating in the issue, join presentations and maybe once visit us in Topolò! If your work will be included, we will send you one copy of the magazine by post.