KITCHEN TABLE ACTIVISM

Workshop at Barents Bird Festival the 18th April with Nelli Makeeva and Eva Bakkeslett

Have you ever thought about how the bacteria were the first to inhabit this earth with life?

Despite being invisible they are an essential part of our human lives as we inhabit more bacterial cells than human cells in our bodies. We have nevertheless come to despise and neglect these very creative and artistic creatures. In this workshop you will have the pleasure of befriending your microbes and learning how they can become your creative collaborators. You will also learn to bake proper Borodinsky bread with a very old bacterial culture from the heart of Mother Russia and make delicious kefir with origins from Caukasus. And while the bread rises we will watch the film “The Magic Tablecloth” made by the artist Eva Bakkeslett in Nikel and meet the main character of the film Nelli Makeeva. A truly cross cultural workshop where Norwegian, Russian and bacterial cultures meet and mingle. 

RØMMEKOLLE REVIVAL POP-UP CAFÉ

Can the process of fermentation provide a model for re-imagining sustainable and thriving human cultures and inspire new ways of collaborating to cope with the many challenges we are now facing in the world?

The Rømmekolle pop-ip café took place at the White Rabbit Café in Murmansk during the Barents Bird Festival 2015. The café became a place for cross cultural sharing and fermentation to reclaim the sensible and rejoice cross cultural collaboration across boundaries and species.  The participants learnt how to become cultural activists and how it is possible to reclaiming a culture that has been homogenised and lost.

THE ART OF BREATHING

Pranayama workshop in my show In Between at Nordnorsk Kunstnersenter with Charlie Taylor-Rugman. A very enthusiastic and appreciative audience of 35 learnt the art of breathing with this ancient and simple technique.

IN BETWEEN

From my show In Between (Mellomrom) at the Nordnorsk Kunstnersenter in Svolvær, North Norway, 25th February till 13th of April 2015. Showed the films Breath and Meantime with the integrated breath sound installation.

CROSSING CONTEXTS

CROSSING CONTEXTS: interventions through artistic research

Symposium in Tallin 27-29. March.

Presenting  "Micropractice, social fermentation and the local"  with Sebastian Dieterich and Wiktoria Furrer

PLAYING FOR TIME

Really excited to launch Playing For Time at the The Free World Centre in London on the 26th of March.  A beautiful and collaborative book conceived and pulled together by Lucy Neil, assisted by Charlotte Du Cann and co-written by several artist including myself.

"This groundbreaking handbook is a resource for artists, community activists and anyone wishing to reach beyond the facts and figures of science and technology to harness their creativity to make change in the world.This timely book explores the pivotal role artists play in re-thinking the future; re-inventing and re-imagining our world at a time of systemic change and uncertainty. Playing for Time identifies collaborative arts practices emerging in response to planetary challenges, reclaiming a traditional role for artists in the community as truth-tellers and agents of change.
Sixty experienced artists and activists give voice to a new narrative – shifting society’s rules and values away from consumerism and commodity towards community and collaboration with imagination, humour, ingenuity, empathy and skill. Inspired by the grass-roots Transition movement, modelling change in communities worldwide, Playing for Time joins the dots between key drivers of change – in energy, finance, climate change, food and community resilience – and ‘recipes for action’ for readers to take and try."

See also Taking Yoghurt to the Next Level - by Lucy Neil

IN BETWEEN

Solo exhibition "MELLOMROM" (In Between) at the North Norwegian Arts Centre in Svolvær 27th February - 12th April..

Premiere of my film Breath screened synchronically on two walls.
Also showing the short film "In Between" (6 min) and the sound installation "Exchange", performance lecture "In Between" and Pranayama Introduction course with Charlie Taylor-Rugman
on the 11th April at 2PM in the gallery.
 
Camera, Clive Ardagh
Sound: Nathanaël Gustin

VADSØ MUSEUM

Vadsø museum-Ruija kvenmuseum

Knitting café whilst listening to Rømmekolle Radio and screening of my film The Magic Tablecloth.

Thank you everyone in Vadsø Museum for spreading cultural activism.

Listen to Rømmekolle Radio HERE (in Norwegian only)

RØMMEKOLLE REVIVAL

RØMMEKOLLE REVIVAL  Barents Spektakel, Kirkenes, 4th-8th February 2015

Inspired by bacteria, how can humans create sustainable and thriving cultures based on collaboration and symbiotic, non-linear relationships to cope with the challenges we are now facing? Can the process of fermentation in e.g. rømmekolle provide a model for re-imagining sustainable, human cultures? 

When cultures die the know-how and experience of generations dies with it. So does the bond created by continually sharing the culture. When bacterial cultures die their unique and specific relationship to place and the connection between humans and their local microbes also disappears. Fortunately, bacterial cultures are incredibly resilient and can survive for thousands of years. They can be revitalised by being given the right conditions to thrive. As a cultural activist you can reclaim, nurture, cultivate, digest and share these microbial wonders to re-activate yourself and your local environment. Cultivating cross-cultural diversity gives you a Robin Hood-like feeling of stealing back what has been lost in a world where the often invisible transformation of microbes have been belittled, overlooked, neglected, combated, tamed or homogenised in physical as well as metaphorical ways. We need to work WITH nature. Not AGAINST it. And collaborate with each other and our fellow animals and bacterias.

Listen to Rømmekolle Radio HERE (in Norwegian only)

NRK on Rømmekolle Revival.

The online Art magazine KUNSTFORUM

The regional newspaper FINNMARKEN

NRK Finnmarksendinga 4.02.2015