Visit to Kultivator (Sweden) May 6th - 9th 2010Thanks to Littoral Arts Trust UK and the Arts Council of Ireland for financial support.
May 6th;
Left home at 5.50 am. Nice day, volcanic ash moving off to the west. Arrived
at Dublin Airport 8.50. Flight left on time.
14.15pm
(GMT +1) arrived Kobenhaven. Took a train to central station, one hour to
wait for my train to Sweden.
Walked around the block. Wind from the North-East, rather chilly.
8pm;
arrived in Kalmar Sweden. Met Mathieu Vrijman from
Kultivator (big sign) and we drove ½ hour to their farm/art project at Dyestad,
on the island of Oland. Long bridge across the sea,
strong winds. Very cold.
Met Malin
Lindmark Vrijman and Ivar and Moa.
Dyestad is
a farming village with a collection of houses and barns clustered together and
farming land all around. Kultivator is made up of Malin & Mathieu, Malin’s
sisters Mia and Marlene, and Henrik Stigeborn who has an organic dairy farm. They
have other people who are involved occasionally and many of their neighbours
have an interest in the project, making physical contributions like sculptures
or constructions or signs, or participating in events.
May 7th;
Woke up in a beautiful guest house that Malin and Mathieu have
constructed in an old stone/wood barn. Took a walk around looking at the
chickens and the various constructions (including the Kultivator shop – not yet
open for the season). Very cold. Collected some firewood in an area of woodland
next to the house. Met Marlene and the horses.
Mid-day;
had delicious lunch with Malin and Mathieu and their family. Lots of discussion
about the work they do, how they do it, why they do it and the philosophy
behind it. The strong family input gives it a very interesting dimension - it’s
really warm and human and non-competitive, open and open-ended. Malin and
Mathieu are getting more and more involved and interested in the business of
farming, producing food and resources for living. We have talked a bit about
permaculture in which we share an interest as a holistic, inclusive, practical system
for utilising all aspects of what is produced
(including that which is nominally ‘waste’) within the system of production as a way of minimising energy outputs.
Went with
Malin to the Kalmar Konstmuseum, where Kultivator have been exhibiting for
three months. The exhibition, rather than being a static thing, is an evolving production
in preparation for the event they are staging at Dyestad in July, titled ‘The
Wedding of Art and Agriculture’. Eschewing the traditional hierarchical model
of ‘conference’ this event uses ‘the wedding’ as a format allows all guests to
participate on an equal footing, not focusing on themselves but on the ‘coupling’
which is being proposed of art and agriculture.
The exhibition
is terrific, the first time I have really grasped the full extent of the work
of Kultivator which cannot really be captured on a website or even in a
publication, because it is intensely process-oriented and exists as a set of events,
relations, ideas, methods, genres, forms and locations that interact and
generate new forms, new ideas in turn.
The Family
Tree got me very excited and enthusiastic. Visitors to the exhibition (and to
the website) are invited to add to this tree - names, links, ideas, whatever -
in a collaborative geneaology for art and agriculture. Lots of names that I
would have contributed were already up there, but I added a few more.
The Kalmar
Konstmuseum is impressive, both as a structure and as a concept. It is owned by
the Kalmar Art Club. Anyone can become a member of the Art Club for a small fee
and have a voice in the development of the museum. They have a collection of art
from early 20th C to contemporary, aspects of which are drawn
together for curated shows. However, they also have an artistic director Olaf
?, who has the vision to draw in expanding practices like that of Kultivator.
We spent
the afternoon at the exhibition then headed back for a dinner with the other
members of Kultivator at Malin and Mathieu’s house. Lots of children there, which
I like to see because of the difficulty of integrating family into so much of
the contemporary art ‘lifestyle’ as defined by the current organisation of the
artworld. We talked about this a little bit, and I find myself more and more
impressed by the attitude of Kultivator towards ‘cultural production’ and what
that can encompass.
Another
lovely dinner followed by the best meeting I have attended in a long time! All
meetings should involve one or two dogs, a cat and a bottle of wine.
Using some
e-mailed questions from Littoral as a starting point we discussed three things in
particular.
One; the
almost unquantifiable value of bringing people together to talk. Human chmistry accounts for so much, and goodwill is more likely to be established in face-to-face meetings than any other way. The list of attendees at The Wedding includes a lot of the
most interesting people working in this area of practice across the globe.
Two; the (related) idea of a practitioner network.
We agreed that this could be a useful support and a way of facilitating
cooperation when appropriate. We found ourselves equally disinterested in an exclusive ‘club’
of practitioners or anything territorial which becomes a form of enclosure
rather than a production of commons.
Three; the work of Littoral which we all agreed is
visionary and generous and inclusive. We hope to see them expand on their ideas
in the near future with support from cultural agencies in the UK and beyond.
May 8th;
Malin and I repotted some leggy tomatoes - I promised to send Andrew’s recipe
for Green Tomato Chutney (the best in the world). Checked out the enormous pond
which they are filling at this moment, and put a collection of minds poster into the shop which will now be part of
the google map.
Had lunch
(dutch pancakes cooked by Mathieu) with John Carter, a singer-songwriter from Cork who lives nearby
with his family. Swapped some Google Earth views with Malin.
Skype with family in sunny and hot Ireland! then put on gloves, hat, coat and wellies and went for walk with Malin and Miko through some wetlands and woods nearby. Very beautiful. More lovely dinner, followed by the visit of Helena and Johanna who spent quite a long time nearly naked in the gathering dusk outside, attiring themselves as brides. It made me cold just to look at them.