Image published with kind permission by Lantmännens’ historical archive by The Centre for Business History, Sweden.

Welcome to an afternoon in ANA where we enquire relations of plant breeding and cultivation. How can these practices, so vital to humans’ life, be understood? What kind of wordings are used to describe them? How do wordings shape the understanding of their relations? Beginning with a preview of the film Cultivating Abundance, the afternoon will open for conversations with invested artists and researchers regarding what human relations to cultivated plants are, have been, and could become.

Background: With the establishment of the Swedish Seed Association in Svalöv, Sweden, in 1886, a modern method for plant breeding was invented that still today is in use by more or less all plant breeding industries across the globe. With a starting point in a series of restored photographs from the very first plant breeding experiments in Svalöv, as well as by the association Allkorn’s (Common Grains) initiative for the restitution of peasants’ grains, the film Cultivating Abundance enquires aspects of traditional and modern breeding and cultivation, and what this shift in method would come to mean for human and more-than-human relations. The film opens for debate regarding its ethical and aesthetic impact on culture also at a wider socio-political scope.

With artist Åsa Sonjasdotter and film maker Matilda Mester, as well as with contributions by further scholars, theorists and artists via zoom.

The film Cultivating Abundance will further be presented as part of the program “Cultivating Stories” taking place in farm fields of South Sweden July 10 and September 18, combined with a seminar at Malmö Art Museum September 17. The program is curated by Åsa Sonjasdotter and is hosted by the Peoples’ Art promotion Skåne and Malmö Art Museum.

In her practice Åsa Sonjasdotter engages in processes for the rehabilitation and re-narration of livelihood relations. Through cultivation of outlawed crops and close readings of related archival matter, lost knowledge and imagination is brought into re-existence. Her recent film Cultivating Abundance deals with ethical and aesthetic-political questions related to plant breeding. Sonjasdotter is a Doctoral Researcher in Artistic Practice at HDK-Valand, the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Matila Mester studied cinematography at Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin. As a cinematographer she has centered on documentary and experimental film forms as well as art films, and her work has been shown on numerous international film festivals and art exhibitions. In recent years she has also worked as an editor for documentary and art films. 

Naomi Hennig works as researcher, artist, curator, editor, and project coordinator. Henning is a doctoral candidate at Goldsmiths, University of London, researching agriculture and extractivism. Her current work is informed by an interest in political ecology, finance, land-use and accumulation in rural and urban contexts.

Photos: Miriam H Nielsen

Maria Nørholm Ramouk’s poetic and process-related performance work “We could go to the Sea (Nmchiw lb7re)”, takes its starting point in the feeling of longing for Africa and examines what it means to feel at home and to have a sense of belonging to more places in the world. “Nmchiw lb7re” is the Moroccan translation of “We could go to the Sea” written in Latin letters. “We could go to the Sea (Nmchiw lb7re)” is part of a long-term artistic study that, through performance, text and installation, focuses on community structures, loneliness and repetition as security. In Astrid Noack’s Atelier, the performance work, which has previously been shown at e.g. Rønnebæksholm, takes a new turn, as it is produced on site and adapted to both the old studio building and the new backyard environment in and around ANA. Dates for the performance follows.

The performance will be held on Sunday 29 May at 12 pm and at 14 pm.

Maria Nørholm Ramouk is a visual artist based in Copenhagen who primarily works in Denmark and Morocco. With a starting point in Ramouk’s own family history, she examines how resources affect the communities we identify with, as well as how these structures are organised internally. Ramouk is concerned with how social contexts, social heritage, resources and cultural conditions are closely related. Loneliness as well as finding security in communities and repetitions are some of the topics that recur in Ramouk’s artistic practice. The work is most often presented in media such as performance, text and installation.

Performers: Simin Stine Ramezanali, Luna Scales, Mia Edelgart og Maria Nørholm Ramouk.

The project is supported by The Danish Art Foundation, The Municipality of Copenhagen – Council for Visual Arts and Nørrebro Lokaludvalg.

In their joint practice, Jan Danebod and Peter Olsen explore a number of mechanisms and processes in the public space with an in-depth interest in the city’s contemporary building culture, its biases and presence in a future that requires a radical change in our approach to the built environment; In climate and environmental issues in particular but also in the massive formative presence construction constitutes. For where and how is it possible in this all-encompassing urban space to carve a place out for oneself? They work sculpturally with materials found in these constructed environments and use the techniques of the construction industry in an attempt to mirror our surroundings and expose structures in order to draw attention to them.

To make this work accessible to the children and young people who move daily on and around the staffed playground in Bispeengen, they will take on the role of a kind of translators. They will move their studio to ANA’s mobile children’s studio for a period and through open artistic work processes try to equip the local children and young people with a sharpened view of their local environment.

With a hands on sculptural approach, the children will become acquainted with a number of materials such as cement, gravel, iron and brick, which form basic elements in the city’s many construction projects. They will come into contact with everything from redevelopment of green areas to the establishment of new construction. Urban planning that can generally seem elusive and out of reach. In Surrounded by Forest, Danebod and Olsen pull these issues down at a children’s level and make them available in new engaging and critically-creative formats.

The project is supported by The Danish Art Foundation’s Huskunstnerordning.

During their stay in ANA Søssa Jørgensen and Geir Tore Holm will further develop the playful documentary, which they began in ANA in 2015. The film was based on interviews with people who were active in preserving and protecting ANA and the surrounding historic backyard environment. In the film, the characters’ statements about space took the form of a song, which lyrics represented a hope that artistic presence and activity can create unity and community in the local environment.

If you look around the city, you often see birds: pigeons, sparrows, gulls, crows and in between a raptor. Despite newly built hostile buildings and other measures to prevent the birds’ free activity, they fly around and settle down.

In interaction with the newly transformed surroundings around ANA, the two artists in collaboration with ornithologists and others with a bird interest in the city will study the bird life in the area. Inspired by the new housing complexes and traditional dovecotes, they will build a sculptural birdhouse of recycled materials collected on Ydre Nørrebro. The house will subsequently be the location for their new film.

Video: Geir Tore Holm & Søssa Jørgensen, Astrid Noack´s Atelier (2015)

The project is supported by the Embassy of Norway.