Gabriela Oberkofler

The Last Field

Gabriela Oberkofler, Der letzte Acker, 2026. Installation aus 12 Zeichnungen, Gerste und verschiedenen Kooperationspartnern, ober- und unterirdisch (jeweils 30 × 40 cm, Tusche auf Papier, 2026), Wandmalerei und Tisch mit Gläsern, mit wachsendem Moos und Gerste, Petrischalen mit Zeichnungen und Waldfunden aus Gröden, Pflanzenlampen. Maße variabel. Im Auftrag der Biennale Gherdëina 10. Foto: Tiberio Sorvillo

The project The Last Field addresses the disappearance of farmland throughout the Val Gardena valley. Until the 1970s, rye, oats, hemp, beans, and potatoes were still grown there. Due to the steep slopes and high altitudes (up to 1,700 m), this labor-intensive work was abandoned and the fields were replaced by pastures. The settlement of Vera, a hamlet above Penia, is home to the highest permanent settlement in Trentino. It is also likely the site of the last grain field (barley). The Last Field marks the end of an era of self-sufficiency for farmers in the Dolomites and, at the same time, a new beginning.

The room installation depicts a barley field growing in small sealed jars. Each jar forms a self-contained ecosystem. Humidity regulation occurs naturally through the one-time addition of water and moss. The mural in the room references the traditional craft of the PITORES from the neighboring Fassa Valley. It depicts a burning, parched barley field in monoculture. The barley stalks grow without roots and transition into human bones in the lower section, and suddenly the perspective shifts underground. The drawings hanging above describe the opposite of monocultural agriculture. They visualize an ideal state of GROWING TOGETHER, a self-contained, diverse structure of life. The room also features drawings that illustrate our connection to the world. While the wall drawing conveys a bleak vision—a landscape engulfed in flames and glowing under extreme heat—the ink drawings on paper offer a more hopeful perspective; they show our coexistence with the world and our appreciation for living creatures such as maggots. 

Gabriela Oberkofler

Gerste und Lärche, 2026, 12 Zeichnungen, Tusche auf Papier, 30 × 40 cm

In a vacant storefront near the pedestrian zone in St. Ulrich, Oberkofler has created a space that straddles the line between a laboratory and a greenhouse. Inspired by the history of the valley’s “last field”—a symbol of the shift from agriculture to tourism—the installation collects fragments of this vanishing landscape and re-situates them within a controlled indoor environment.

Plants originating from the former farmland are cultivated in glass containers and kept alive by infrared light, as if they were in a state of artificial preservation. Surrounding them, delicate drawings extend across walls and ceiling, drawing on the Pitores of the Fassatal, which deconstruct plant forms and reassemble them into delicate, expansive networks. The drawn and the living begin to merge, blurring the boundaries between observation and growth.

Oberkofler’s intervention stages a quiet tension between care and control, cultivation and loss—and transforms the shop into a speculative space where memory, ecology, and the future of the valley’s landscape are held in a fragile balance. (Text: Samuel Leuenberger) 

Biennale Gherdeina 10 curated by Samuel Leuenberger

Gerste und Lärche, 2026, 12 Zeichnungen, Tusche auf Papier, 30 × 40 cm

Biennale Gherdëina 10 – (Future) Paradise Gardens, curated by Samuel Leuenberger, 31.5. – 13.9.2026, Video: Roberta Segata

The Last Field

Gabriela Oberkofler

Gerste und Lärche, 2026, 12 Zeichnungen, Tusche auf Papier, 30 × 40 cm

Biennale Gherdeina 10 curated by Samuel Leuenberger

Gerste und Lärche, 2026, 12 Zeichnungen, Tusche auf Papier, 30 × 40 cm

Biennale Gherdëina 10 – (Future) Paradise Gardens, curated by Samuel Leuenberger, 31.5. – 13.9.2026, Video: Roberta Segata

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