Commissioned by Eskilstuna municipality, coordinator Erik Roren.
In collaboration with Skjulstaskolans 4:th and 5:th grade.

Public assignment from municipality of Eskilstuna, as part of a programme to activate recreation area of Vilsta,
and to engage with children from nearby housing areas.

Kultivators idea for an artistic collaboration with children and that area, was to play a game, where they together with the children could explore new ways to look at and engage with the surrounding.

The game is to imagine that Vilsta is an unknown planet. “What if we were aliens that came to Vilsta. What would we see?  What would we think about it?”  And, of course, “What would our spaceship look like?”

Through the municipality contact was made with nearby school Skjulstaskolan, that opened up for a collaboration by adjusting their schedules, and giving important feedback into which age groups that would fit best to work with. The most important factor, though, was the great engagement and understanding from the teachers, both of the artistic idea, and the abilities of the children to work with it.

During the spring semester of 2017, Kultivator worked in close collaboration with the children around the story that an alien ship with extraterrestrials came to the Vilsta area. The children created clay models of spaceships, wrote stories and made drawings, that all contributed to the final design of the spaceship that was to be made for permanent installation in the area. The school also spend one whole day out in the area, where small groups of children imagined to be aliens, and made investigations of the new planet they had encountered. The investigations were collected by Kultivator, and processed to 6 different “information boards”, that were to be put inside the spaceship.

With inspiration from ancient times shipbuilding, and future´s need for renewable materials, Kultivator choose for oak as material for the spaceship. The area of Eskilstuna has many oak trees growing, and was historically exporting oak for shipbuilding industry. Oak being the most resilient wood that does not need coating or treatment to survive outdoors, was also an important reason to use it.

The blueprint for the spaceship was based on the drawings and models from the children, further developed by Kultivator, and finally made into technical drawings that could be used for constructing a safe, beautiful and durable building, lasting at least 15 years, with minimal maintenance.

Inside the building is a bench to sit on, and in the middle a piece of a tree trunk with a magnifying glass mounted in it, for having a closer look at found objects. In this room the game can be played again and again.. “we just landed, let´s see what we can find on this planet…” A “game recipe” is made, based on the assignment the children of Skjulstaskolan had when they were exploring the surrounding of the ship together with Kultivator. The recipe can be found on Eskilstuna municipality website, and is to be used by teachers, parents, or others who would like to play..

So the surrounding of Vilsta can become an unknown planet, to be discovered again and again. Both of those who grow up right now, the ones who has travelled here, and us that walked here for so long that we stopped seeing the miracles and mysteries right in front of us.

UPDATING

Background

The purpose was to activate the Berga-Norrliden area. Kalmar municipality invited Kalmar Art Museum to work with artists around activating the area between two residential areas in Kalmar municipality, Berga and Norrliden. Kalmar Art Museum has previously worked with Kultivator, an experimental collaboration between organic farming and art found in Dyestad, Öland. Kultivator’s work has since the start in 2005 been imbued with ideas on participatory and joint artistic processes, where spectators are invited as co-creators, both in art and in public places. The artistic coordinators Mathieu Vrijman and Malin Lindmark Vrijman both teach at Öland Folk High School on a general line and see folk education and folk high schools as a sovereign force for democracy, culture and social change. They have therefore chosen to, as a sculpture / performance / happening, open a folk high school at a designated place between Norrliden and Berga, and also award a scholarship at a summer course at Öland Folk High School.

The exterior shape of the work will is built up of interconnected joists, which suggest a building and room layout, but with open walls and ceilings, as a full-scale three-dimensional drawing. The actual construction is be done together with participants from Öland Folk High School, several residents in or near the Berga – Norrliden area during Saturday. During Sunday and Monday, the Folk High School is manned by Kultivator, as well as participants and staff from Öland Folk High School. Visitors and passers-by are then invited to taste, try, listen and see at the folk high school; in practical work with artistic techniques, simple cooking over open fire, choir singing, Swedish, poetry reading and more. You can also meet the school’s principal in his office and if you are interested, fill out an application for the scholarship that gives a week’s summer course at Öland Folk High School in the summer of 2017. The scholarship will be awarded during festive forms when the school closes on Monday.

The project is announced through posters and flyers in the area, press releases, social media, and last but not least through the network of new arrivals, both from asylum residents and residents in the establishment phase, which Kultivator and the folk high school built up over several years of work with the target group.

Purpose and goal

To create, in a living, unexpected and direct way, meetings between people in the Berga – Norrliden area and the department of folk education. Folk education has historically been a success factor for integration in Sweden, when the rural population was to be formed both for political assignments and jobs outside the agricultural sector, and has still enrolled in its aims to reduce the gaps in society. The aim of the project is to start a relationship, where people with different backgrounds can meet and new networks be established. The idea is that the visitors will open their eyes of the folk high school’s many qualities as a form of learning with social commitment, and the folk high school will be enriched by yet more participants from areas where this form of schooling is less well-known. 

2016 var året då Konstfrämjandet Öland-Kalmar valde att fokusera på hästen som kulturbärare. Vi leker med iden om att användandet och interaktionen med hästar skulle kunna ändra sättet vi lever våra liv på i framtiden. 

NEW HORSE CULTURES

Hästen har varit vårt redskap för förflyttning, jakt, krig och jordbruk, och var förutsättningen för människans stora migrationer. Den förknippas med krigarkungar och med unga flickor, med överklass och med fattigdom. Vi använde hästen som centralfigur i en social skulptur som varade från Maj till augusti 2017. Allt som allt inolverades närmare 150 personer i allt från ridning, byggarbete, nyproduktion av konstvideoarbeten, korrigering av hästskelett och performance med piano i Ridhus. Vi hade glädjen att jobba med konstnärerna Signe Johannessen, Shiva Anoshirvani, Ramez Omareen och Johan Carlsson. Efter vårt projekt på kultivators gård på Öland, flyttade delar av projektet in på Kalmar konstmuseum och blev basen för utställningen ”Den sista Ölandshästen”, curerad av Joanna Sandell.

Den första aktiviteten var en studiecirkel i hästhantering för nyanlända kvinnor från asylboenden på Öland.

”Jag har alltid längtat efter hästar, men i Syrien var det ingen kvinnogrej. Det verkar det vara här”

”Det krävs att man har bra självförtroende om man ska få hästen att lita på en och följa en, det är en otrolig känsla när det går”

8 kvinnor träffades vid 11 tillfällen på Kultivators gård, och lärde sig hantera, rida och umgås med hästar. Projektledare var Dima Matr, själv nyanländ, med bakgrund från ett jordbruk i Syrien. Studiecirkeln avslutades med en stor festlighet på gården, med riduppvisning, screening av konstfilm, hästdisco och invigning av Johan Carlsons ”Pavillion with horses”. 

Johan Carlsson och hans JAC studios från Köpenhamn bjöds in till projektet för att formge ett nytt sorts utestall med nya funktioner, bland annat med en mobil tecknarstudio, inbyggd i en tvåhjulig vagn. Precis som hästarna användes byggandet som möjlighet till möten i arbete. Haitham Sabahi, nyanländ från Syrien, och hela hans familj ledde i arbetet i ständigt samspråk med arkitekterna Johan Carlsson, Beate Juell, och Sebastian…  och alla frivilliga från konstfrämjandets ”ungläger”.

Table of plenty by Kultivator

A part of the alternative education programme “Everything Under The Sun”, that merges the fields of food and art under the issues of climate change through an interdisciplinary, experimental approach. Curated by Ece Pazarbasi and  Caique Tizzi in the Agora collective, Neuekölln, Berlin.

Kultivator led a module with 12 participants in this programme, choosing to set the focus on the refugee situation. From Kultivators perspective, the changes in everyday life due to the migrations of people is one of the effects of climate change that had the biggest impact so far on society as a whole, as well as on Kultivators home village and farm. This movement is big right now, but as climate change continuous, the amount of people having to re locate themselves will only grow. With the 12 great participants of chefs, artists and activists from all over the world, the aim was to create an artistic response to the possibilities and challenges of this present.

We were particularly interested in the changing cultures of food, like organization of meals,  economy, ownership, manual labor, social aspects, and the mix of traditions and recipes.

The north has since long benefitted from influences from all over the world in their kitchens. Berlins Neuekölln and Kreuzberg districts are evidence of a great wealth in food culture, from street food to restaurants, or as in Agora; cosmopolitan, artist-run cafes. In the many street markets there is an abundance of produce.

In the same areas people are living in refugee camps, at the moment extremely overpopulated, with no possibilities for people to prepare food or eat as they wish. With only one week to work with, we set out to cook something from these ingredients.

The “cooking” process started with visits to inspiring initiatives, activist groups and kitchens, and two different camps for asylum seekers. With the people we met, and in our group, we decided that we wanted to create a situation of sharing and discussion with people that are in the asylum seeking process, and together with them create something that could serve as a template for future community events at Agora cafe.

As we discussed the project with local street vendors, an overwhelming lot were more than willing to join by donating bread, vegetables, fruit and other nearly overdate produce. In one evening’s gathering, we collected more than enough of material for a huge dinner. We could invite the people we had met in the refugee camps, Tempelhof (at the time housing a thousand people) and Berlin Stadtbadhaus (around 300) to share the kitchen and social space of Agora with us for one evening. The event was named “Table of plenty”, referring to both the overfull table of food material, and the chefs and guests from many backgrounds. The evening went over all expectations.

The connections made between people locally in Neuekölln, and the map of where to find food, + the new experiences and knowledge sharing of kitchen skills, could be one small step in preparation for a world that is changing, not only for the worse.

Programme Curated by: Ece Pazarbasi and Caique Tizzi