At the harvestfeast of 2009 we were honoured with works of: Music and Art Centre “ Yellowbox” who made a living jukebox with singer songwriter John Leo Carter.
The artist Jonas Rahm,
The photographer Simon Johansson,
The artist Marlene Lindmark
and the philosopher Jonas Gren.
Besides this we showed works of Kultivator
and sold vegetables from the farm.
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For European union agricultural minister meeting in Växjö, Sweden
invitation by Växjö arthall
Seed up !
Is a campaign to support the Belgian project seeds for food, initiated by prof. Willem van Cotthem. The project objective is to collect seeds for growers in North african refugeecamps. Just the seeds from tropical fruit and vegetables that we have an abundance of in our supermarkets and on our kitchentables, are expensive and hard to get hold on for people cultivating in the areas where they climatwise easily can be grown. Seeds are by nature hardy and if we collect them from our food, dry them and pack them with some care, they can be used and provide food for people in camps that have very little access to fresh food otherwise. The very grassroot, user friendly character of the action, is also suggesting an alternative to great scale aid projects, and great scale agriculture policies (=monopoly), letting information and seeds travel independently over unionborders
Cowdown !
Kultivator shows two pieces, that concerns the development towards less biodiversity and injust distribution of foods and goods globally, promoted a.o. by European union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In both works the link is laid between the restriction on freedom and development that monopoly and closedcode/copyright is causing in software and the same phenomena occurring on farming and food supply.
The Cowdown is an installation with a reconstruction of a now extinct breed of cow, ”The Ölandsko” that used to be common on the island where Kultivator is sited. The cow is modelled 1:1, and standing inside a small ready made greenhouse outside Växjö public library. Inside the library, visible from outside, is a screen with the cowdown terminal animation, showing source code and a large variety of cattle breeds from all over the world. Images of the various breeds and short facts about their characteristics, history and breeding schemes are colored in the terminal green black, suggesting that we are watching a wonderful richness of variety, that needs to be kept, and at best expanded.
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Symposium is organised by RIXC, The center for new media culture with the support of Nordic Culture Fund, and Nordic Culture Point
ABOUT SYMPOSIUM
The 4-day symposium gathering together artists, activists, technologists, scientists and researchers, to share their ideas and explorations which deal with renewable energy resources, alternative ecological use of technologies, and other sustainability related issues.
Themes:
[bio / eco]
Environmental science and ecology – Ecosystem research – Permaculture and biosystem design – Biomass as renewable energy resource – Critical and alternative approaches to biotechnology
[solar energy]
Sunlight as constant energy resource – Process of photosynthesis – Solar energy technologies
[open source]
Sustainability using open source/information approaches: in art and grassroots culture, ecology, architecture and environmental design
[myths & legends]
Historical traditions and modern alternative solutions – Cultural transformations: energy in nature and in city – Future visions of terrestrial energy
Location:
The symposium will take place in artists residency center SERDE in Aizpute, a small town in Kurzeme region of Latvia. SERDE is located in old wooden historical building that also will be used as a specific case for which alternative and ecological approach in developing sustainable systems and renewable energy technologies can be explored and applied.
http://www.serde.lv
The outcomes of the symposium – new projects, artworks, co-productions – will be presented during the international art and science conference ENERGY that will take place in the framework of Art+Communication festival in Riga, October 8-10, 2009. (The call for proposals for ENERGY festival and conference is currently open: deadline August 31, 2009. http://rixc.lv/09)
see: http://renewable.rixc.lv/?page_id=2
Glocal guide is an ongoing Kultivator project.
Sustainability using open source / information approaches: in art and grassroots culture, ecology, architecture and environmental design
Sustainability using Open source approaches on eco tourism and local community awareness.
Linking The right of public access to nature (part of the swedish constitution, giving rights to anyone to roam the wild) with the rights and possibilities of public access to information and history.
We present our recent Project ”Glocalguide”, that links contemporary open source structures for information sharing to an ancient common walking path.
From the village commonland, next to Kultivators ground, leads a path through the forest to an ancient ruin fortress, dated to somewhere around 200 b.c.
The path has historically been used for bringing cattle out to graze in the forest, and for people from now abandoned villages in the forest to go to school, church or the market. Much of the flora and fauna along the path is rare and unique for swedish nature, due to the long history of use by man and grazing animals. The fortress ruin the path leads to, has never been fully excaveted and no all over accepted explanation over its function exists, leaving plenty of room for popular beliefs and tales over.
Information and knowledge about the flora and fauna, historical facts and speculations are highly interesting and plentiful, but hard to get hold on for a visitor, or the younger generation living here.
The project intended to set a structure, both analogue and digital, for sharing this information, and build on an open source guide for this specific route, that will be owned by everybody and nobody, mimmicking the common use of as well the forest as of the path with communal respect and cooperation. In our presentation we will give a short resume over this work, and show examples of the strategies we have used to engage different cathegories of people to contribute.
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Land, art in the Zeeland Wilhelminapolder presents an exhibition in art station Hongersdijk focussing on man in relation to the surrounding landscape. The occasion for the exhibition is the 200th anniversary of the Royal Wilhelmina Polder Society (De KMWP). Works of art by Maartje Korstanje, Kultivator, Dirk Zoete, Eva Fiore Kovakovsky and Tue Greenfort are on show from 25 April in the Hongersdijk farmstead. Organised by SKOR and CBK Zeeland
Kultivator will make a work consisting of four parts for the Wilhelmina Polder exhibition.We look at future visions and history of the place, by exploring interfaces between people, wildlife and contemporary agriculture. The work can but does not have to be clung together, the different parts will be:
An installation, with working title ”King Midas”, is build up round and including the header of the combine harvester of the farm.
On top of the header, and above it in the air, gold coated realistic modelled sparrows and seagulls (common scavengers of the fields) will be positioned. On a distance of a few meters stand a young deer, also realistic modelled coated with gold. (Seemingly made of gold, but in fact covered with a thin gold-like coat)
“Kitchen animals” An audiovisual work combining documentary film sequences from kitchens (people making stamppot) in the Wilhelmina Dorp, with animations of wildlife
“Optional”: Possible landscapes. Visions on future and far past landscapes of the polder. Framed montages
“Packages”: An experiment in free hand drawing and use of package- and presentation material for the farms produce, foremost potatoes. The drawings/collages will be both separate and made directly onto walls and interior.
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