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Eating Land Art is a temporary land-art piece made on +2000m height by Evi Olde Rikkert in collaboration with a flock of 70 sheep.

During a three month transhumance, in Valtellina (IT), the flock of sheep grazed different fenced off shapes set out by the artist on the lush Alpine meadows. This resulted in semi-accidental and temporary drawings on the mountains: land art pieces by rumination.

The digestive system of ruminants such as sheep lets them use & transform resources such as high-fiber forage that cannot be used by other animals by re-chewing. In this process sheep are able to break down plant matter and transform it into proteins valuable for humans such as milk & wool.

More than 60 percent of the land area in the world (which we call rangeland) is not suitable for cultivation but can become productive when used for ruminant grazing. At the same time we can consider shepherding as a form of anthropic modification of the Alpine landscape.