Author Archives: Marek

Collecting, drying and making my own tea

My newly found hobby – Collecting, drying and making my own tea. Fermented birch and wild strawberry leaves.

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outsider

On the occasion of the participation in the Triennale that is taking place in Malmo with the name of “AGRIKULTURA Triennal” located in the area of Hyllie, within the future English Park, we present a proposal with the title Outsider within the project Kitchen Dialogues.

We start from the idea of developing, in the allocated area, a series of spaces where the management of various human activities cause the least possible impact on other species and on the terrain itself; Posing a unique area of coexistence and confluence, a matrix for the world through an alliance between art and biocentrism, where the collective practice of social production and reproduction becomes social transformation, including the biological sphere.

The group of actions that will take place between these elements has no limit. There is incompatibility, community, asylum and discord, decay, rupture and degradation, or collapse without rapprochement. There are coincidences and estrangements that make possible the presence of diversity.

The proposal includes the hosting, in the area allocated by AGRIKULTURA Triennal, of the necessary requirements for two spaces. One, a space generated for the accomplishment of the performances of the artists who have been invited to participate in the Triennal. Two, a space designated to give a public service as an area to rest. The project is carried out contemplating the sustainability and including the participation of the diversity of the vegetal species that grow in wild form at the moment in the whole area where the project is made.

The goal is to generate a project that reviews the right of plants, and other living beings. The project includes wild plants designated as undesirable plants in areas controlled by humans such as gardens and plants without homes.
The Outsider project is not what you do, but how you do it, which forms the basis of the ethics of such relationships. From this point of view, the project fosters thinking through our multi-specific collaboration. The ethics of relationships between species is a debate that has been going through the field of contemporary art for years. Outsider, is hosting a project dedicated to multispecies co-evolution that examines and hopes to reshape links between living beings, both human and non-human.

Calling for the Others sound piece published

Thank you for everyone who took part in two of the Calling for the Others sessions in Agrikultura. We had amazing times and calls. The sound piece is available in Soundcloud now at Calling For The Others.

Warm thank you for the contribution!

Input Field Form is getting ready for food-sampling tour

Input Field Form translates Agrikultura’s artist submission form ­into fields of radishes, potatoes and other vegetables, as well as soil, and electronics. On opening day from 13:00-15:00 visitors and participants are invited for a tour of the fields and can try edible samples from each field…

Edible Carpet collaborators!

I planted my last seeds in the Edible Carpet on 30 June, 2017!

I would like to thank some people who have helped me a lot: Thore Soneson, Ann-Marie Göransson, Gunilla Barck and Anja Nilsson.

Åsa Maria Bengtsson

Calling for the Others: Workshops

Join the environmental-sound-project ‘Calling on the Others’ to learn kulning – traditional cattle calling. Also we’ll learn other ways to connect with our bodies, minds and voice to the surrounding environment as well as other species. No previous experience of music, singing or sound work is required. Parts of the workshops will be recorded and afterwards composed into a sound piece that can be heard in Malmö, Hyllie in Agrikultura Triennal during July-August 2017.
Warm welcome to take part in one or both workshops:
June 28. at 12-14:30
July 1. at 12-14:30
Location: Hyllie English Park, a 5 minute walk from Hyllie Train Station, please see the map at https://agrikultura.triennal.se/visit/

The workshop is free of charge. The language is English, some Swedish translation available. If you have any questions, need more info etc. please contact mkk (at) katastro.fi

The workshop sessions are by artists Mari Keski-Korsu and Grit Ruhland. Helle Thun is the visiting kulning guide.

More info also at  https://agrikultura.triennal.se/artworks/calling-for-the-others/

Anna Elwing joining Calling for the Others

The first Calling for the Others workshop will take place on Wed 28.6. at 12-14.30. Welcome! There have been some changes in the plans: unfortunately our kulning expert Helle Thun got ill. But we are happy to welcome Anna Elwing who’ll join guide us to the world of kulning. Anna is professional singer as well as singing and yoga teacher. Read more about her on her website at www.satmanderyoga.se/lrare-1
For Wednesday’s workshop, unfortunately the Agrikultura info signs are not set up by the time yet. If you have Google maps, please check out the map at agrikultura.triennal.se/visit If you come from the Hyllie train station direction, walk the street in between the Emporia shopping mall and Malmö Arena until you see a sculpture of a huge woman face. Keep going straight forward over the intersection and the bridge over the motorway. After the bridge you’ll see red containers on the left. From there, there will be someone guiding you forward.

Trees of 40 fruit planted

Sam’s apple and cherry trees have been planted by Lars Qvint’s students at Hvilan utbildning.

Sam will be assisted by Daniel Wilby, who will collect and write backstories to the trees that Sam creates.

Dandelions on the move

I’m now taking up a large number of plants at the croft. They are planted in pots made of newspaper paper and placed in the shadow to rest. Each plant is numbered and registered on a map, to ensure it will be replanted in the same position at the new site in Hyllie.

More here…

Preparing the performance for the opening

These are edible sculptures.

The transparent egg contains a very special collection of seeds, flowers, herbs, fruits and spices. When you eat an egg, the thin transparent shell crashes and a complex bouquet starts to expand inside your mouth. The progressive layering of the tastes takes you in to the landscape we have imagined so dearly. A place where a rich biodiversity keeps evolving reaching out for you, dynamic, reciprocal. In Landscape of Resistance wild herbs and cultivars do not compete, like the tastes you just felt in your mouth, they are part of the same discourse.
Come to taste them, 1st of July at 15:00 at Hyllie’s park, Egle will offer them during a ritual performance at the plot of land she has seeded.

Photo by: Juha Huuskonen and Egle Oddo

Preparing for Agriphoto-Culturagraph

18 June, 2017

Farah Marie Velten will be arriving to Agrikultura in just a few days from now to begin actualizing AGRIPHOTO-CULTURAGRAPH. Follow her on instagram as she draws light creating cyanotypes of edible plants and foraged finds growing on and around the festival’s site. Attend one of her workshops where you can learn how this alternative printing process from the 1800s works and make a one-of-a-kind piece yourself which you’ll be able to bring home with you.

And register for her workshop on Sunday 2 July, on eventbrite!

 

 

The plants moved in at The Cluster

The plants moved in at The Cluster- edge forestgarden! A work intensive week heading from Stockholm via Öland and B´ströö plantschool to Agrikultura site, Hyllie Malmö via Kåseberga-Höör and Holma forestgarden… Thanks to fantastic work Johanna Söndergaard Johansson and fantastic Arne and all students at Holma folkhögskola! And Monix Sjölin, Johanna Kindvall, Susanna Kapusta, Marek Walczak for helping putting up fence and water.

Stories of coming together

​What does it mean to *come together*? For my piece in Agrikultura, I am collecting stories about what this means to you. When, how or why do people come together? In particular, I’m interested stories such as: (1) a time when you came together with others in a way that made you feel free, or that empowered your individuality, (2) a time when you came together with others for the sake of cooperation, and through coordinated effort achieved more that any individual could have on their own, and (3) a time when you came together with others in a spirit of negativity or meanness, perhaps in such a way that your common link was the exclusion or bullying of an outsider.

Stories can be long or short – let’s say between 20 and 500 words. I would like to collect an audio recording of you telling your story, and could do this in person or over the phone. If you would prefer, I would be happy to receive a short text, as long as you don’t mind me making a recording of someone else reading your story.

Audio of your story will be incorporated as source material in my piece. Except for the sound of your voice, your anonymity will be preserved. And again, if you would prefer, I’d be happy to have someone else lend their voice on your behalf.
Accepting stories in English or Swedish.

Please contact me via email if you are interested. You can reach me via gmail with username rsolomon.

Meetings, garden workshops & interviews

In May 2017 OSS#HL carried a public outreach at Holma to build a healing garden to be installed in Agrikultura 2017 in July. The process consisted in different community meetings, gardening workshops, interviews with residents and självförvaltning members and the participation of OSS at Holma’s Sommarfest. We learn about the strong history of community organizing through gardening at Holma and gain the input of the community for the design of the garden. All this was possible thanks to the incredible support of Johanna Kindvall, Jenny Widov, Marek Walczak, Susanna Kapusta & Amanda McDonald Crowley from Agrikultura; Sofie Pettersson & Felicia Olofsson from MKB Fastighets AB and all the neighbors at Holma that welcomed Outer Seed Shadow with open arms! We will be back in late June to start the construction!

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Bamdad-Payvar
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The Seed Cover

Rendel is making the seed cover for the Almanac – the catalog for the exhibition. Malin Lobell helped select the seeds based on ‘green manure’ – a way to revitalize the soil. The seeds are:
Phacelia tanacetifolia Honungsfacelia
Trifolium inkarnatum, blodklöver
Trifolium resupinatum, perserklöver
Lolium multiflorum var. westerwoldicum Westerwoldiskt rajgräs
Helianthus annuus solros
Vicia villosa, Luddvicker

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Cluster Preparation

18th of April: Malin visits Holma Forestgarden in Höör to introduce Agrikultura and present Cluster with the goal of getting some students involved. Their teachers are Johanna Johansson and Esbjörn Wandt. During the day we went to the greenhouse and replanting cuttings from sorrels, lemon balm, sweet cicely. We are excited to have these great collaborators working with us on Cluster!

bilder till KN arkiv-
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bilder till KN arkiv-
bilder till KN arkiv-

Egle’s 2nd trip


Egle came to Malmö for her 2nd time to work on the Ark of Seeds from 7 – 11 May, 2017.

She sowed extra seeds, fertilized, and had some help from students at Hvilan Utbildning to gather stones.

The visit ended with a fabulous feast prepared by Egle with Agrikultura artists and friends.

Progress on the other side of the pond

A quick update on our progress on this side of the pond:

1. We have assembled the basic components for the sensing nodes (see attached images). We are going with sensors for soil moisture, soil pH, temperature, light, humidity. Leonardo says they are close to having a prototype ready for the node electronics (with the exception of the soil pH sensor, which arrived this week here in the lab).

2. The Raspberry Pi server is up and running, with the database containing dummy data for now. I am working with this to develop the dashboard and mobile client.

3. Leonardo will be sending along designs for the physical housing. We discussed 3d printing them to make them water-tight, and designing them in such a way that they can be partially buried in the ground to help keep them from growing feet and walking away at night.

On the Swedish side of the pond, we have found hundreds of wild roses we can use, and a lot of sea buckthorn.. neither of which are kind to humans, but have some great benefits to nature.

Almanac

Rendel is creating a catalog that consists of an envelope inside which are a selection of postcards and an updated ‘almanac’ – with instructional pages created by the artists.

Are tea plants innately slug-resistant?

An Alaskan gardener suggests using coffee grounds as slug repellent, as slugs apparently hate caffeine.
A Swedish farm already grows tea, and they sell tea seedlings.
As part of our research at Agrikultura, Martian Tea proposes to introduce tea seedlings into one of the gardens in a nearby town which is tormented by black slugs.
Tea may be a source of nutrients to Mars inhabitants should the Martian slug population get out of control and devour many other crops.

The spiral forest

On Robert Ek’s suggestion, Oliver’s grove of ancient trees is in the form of a spiral. To be seen by aircraft, but also related to a number of theme’s in Oliver’s thinking.

Dandelion progress

Bjørn has seeded dandelions – we are waiting to see if they show up. Once they are growing, he suggests that he might show you where to pick them. Follow the process at http://www.700dandelions.bjornwangen.se