the deliberate consumption of earth, soil, or clay
All the concepts of geophagia—as psychiatric disorder, culturally sanctioned practice or sequel to famine—fall short of a satisfying explanation (…) Might it be an atavistic mode of behaviour, formerly invaluable when minerals and trace elements were scarce? Its re-emergence might then be triggered by events such as famine, cultural change or psychiatric disease (…)
A. Woywodt, Medical history of Geophagia.
For world art day 2015, and the debate on art as subject in school, Kultivator serves the cake Geophagia, made of one of the at the same time shittiest and most precious materials there is.
We´re looking forward to a pleasant time with nutritious trace elements, and a discussion on how we create the best conditions for young people, and with them the rest of society, to grow.
Residence at Castelvenere.
Organised by Strade di Vini, curated by Leandro Pisano.
We travelled by car from our rural home in Dyestad, Sweden crossing Europe to the rural place Castelvenere. For 5 days we worked here wih a group of teenagers where their own reflections and desires about the area guided the work.
Resulting in new designs for carnival masks under the title "Into the vineyard" and a series of photo manipulations changing the small town Caselvenere after desire.
For the Creative Time Summit we supplied some of the ingredients, like milk for cheese and kalvdans (dessert), beans, onion, pumpkin, hard bread and sea Buckthorn (berries), for the dinner at the the Moderna Museet, Stockholm
During the dinner we offered return tickets to use the compost toilet we temporarily installed to give the chance to return some of the energy given by our farm.
We brought the digested material back to our farm and will use it to grow corn and sunflowers in the next growing season.
For the New biennale of art and architecture, Botkyrka konsthal, Fittja, Swedish art and agriculture collective Kultivator together with Stuart Wright, South Africa and Adam Nyandikila Nkelanza, Tanzania, gave a Humus kitchen workshop.
A humus kitchen is a room to prepare the organic materials excreted by people after their digestive processes, using time, warmth and fine ingredients in a similar way as a kitchen of foods.
In the workshop we discuss and work around stories and attitudes connected to kitchens versus toilets, how they can connect and how we experience them. Can going to the toilet be as creative, sensual and important as carefully preparing food? What are the political, social and cultural conditions wherein our experiences around toilets are shaped?
The humus kitchen is one in a series of composting and exchange actions that Kultivator has made in collaboration with Botkyrka konsthall. Closed system compost toilet will be built in Kultivators future project Open Cargo, a long term work that builds a grassroots infrastructure of small independent but connected residencys in respective community, connecting Fittja, Red Hill South Africa, Mbeya in Tanzania and Dyestad, Öland, Sweden. The residencys will be formed by each community according to its needs and to its abilities, and just like the humus kitchen in Fittja explore the potentials of each place to create small-scale sustainable architecture.
URBAN HORSE SOIL ACTION, Riot Re-framed
In April this year, Kultivator build a warm-compost adjacent to the art institution ANA in Nørrebro,
Copenhagen. The compost was designed as a possible meeting place for people living and working in the
backyard, but also to be a destination for school children from the area who can leave organic waste to it, and
study how a circuit works. Symbolically, the compost becomes an image of seemingly useless scrap from many
households together is broken down and converted into fine soil that gives rise to new life.
To introduce the compost and create awareness around it, Kultivator ran a campaign to collect the first green
waste for the compost with the help of a Police horse.
The origin of the idea came from the old-time collection of waste by horse and buggy, especially in Holland,
where the collector with his horse was a popular social institution wandering from door to door, collecting
potato peeling and other green waste, mainly for animal feed.
In a song by Dutch singer Jaap Put is described how the children rush to the door with a lump of sugar
on hand at the sound of the horse-hoofs clattering onto the street. Today the clatter of hoofs on streets,
especially in areas like Nørrebro, is more likely to mean that the police took their horses out. The associations
connected with the sound are quite different from the ones of the song. Last days abuse of police on horse on
demonstrations in Malmö brings the images close to us.
In the backyard where ANA is located, the remnants of the 1930 -ies horse stables still remain. The area has a
recent history of riots and unrest in the streets. Kultivator wished to introduce contemporary green recycling
by horse and cart on the street for a day, and reclaim the horse as a servant of the people rather than a tool of domination
In Rotundan in Kalmar, we can hear the sound of the walk of the horse in Nørrebro, and contemplate the role of the urban horse today, yesterday, and in the future.
The walk of the horse in the streets took place in April 2014
