Our Sister organisation MKP (Tomorrow’s Art Audience) is launching a new project about sustainable agriculture and food in 2027. Here is a short introduction.
How food is produced and what we eat is essential for our health. A network of Nordic organisations (from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.) will organise a series of workshops in three Nordic countries. There is extensive knowledge about how art’s directness can be used as a tool to support better health, to promote sustainable farming and new eating habits. However the organisations that have the right knowledge work in different disciplines and remain unconnected. We organise these workshops to bring a network together so that important knowledge and experience can be shared. Through a short term network ,we will get a better picture about the knowledge in the region so that we can to spread the knowledge among Nordic institutions.
Finally, we want to share our own knowledge, experience and our connections related to art, education and science networks in Europe with our Nordic peers.
(1) In March 2027 the participants of the project will meet at Ekerö and Stockholm. At Ekerö, we will visit Rosenhill and learn about their work with ecological farming. After that we will proceed to a two day working session at the nearby Rastaholmen. Here everyone in the network will get to know each other better and we will learn about each others’ methodologies, research and practice. During the two days we mix lectures and discussions with practical exercises that include art, cooking and explorative experiences in the beautiful surrounding nature. The group will also be served excellent and healthy food. The first working session will end in Stockholm with a public event. Here the group will present the results from what was learned at Ekerö interspersed with artistic performances that highlight the questions of the project. (2) A second workshop will be held in Copenhagen in May 2027. Here the group will focus on lifestyle, eating habits and how it affects the human gut microbiome, the microbes that we live in symbiosis with. What can we do to make the “right” microbes in our gut happier and more numerous? How do our eating habits affect our health? What is that our bodies lack and how can we ingest what is needed? The second session is more theoretical than the other two. It will however include visits to places of interest like the Medical museion. (3) The third working session will be held in Jakobstad (Pietarsaari) in North-western Finland i September 2027. Here we will work closely with Garden Flora, a local plant school. We will also interact with the local art community. The first part of the workshop will focus on music and its relationship to the project’s themes. The group will for instance be introduced to the field of “phyto-acoustics” which is the emerging scientific field studying how plants perceive, produce, and respond to sound waves through air and the soil. Again, we will make a public presentation that mixes performances and lectures. The second part of the workshop will be devoted to documenting and evaluating the results of the projects three workshops.
In a longer perspective, it is in everyone’s interest to have access to good food and to eat well. Food, as we all know, has an enormous impact on human health. In a shorter perspective, the project aims to learn from each other what the key strategies are to inspire better health through better agriculture and better eating habits. We also investigate the role of pollutants, how they can be avoided and cleansed from the body. The final end goal of the project lies in sharing methods to promote healthier lifestyle and better eating habits. The project puts special emphasis on how the directness of the arts (visual art, music, dance, film, theatre etc.) can be used to reach audiences with these message in creative and inspiring ways. That is why the project brings together players in ecological farming, medical research, healthcare, cutting edge cooking together with open-minded arts organisations. We are happy to have IKFKOS aboard the project who will offer animist perspectives on the project’s questions.