[Quilt for Akalla ekoodling. Photo: Erik Sjödin.]

The quilt above has been stitched together by supporters of Akalla ekoodling (Akalla Ecological Cultivation), as a way to honor the memory of Akalla ekoolding and process the sorrow of Akalla ekoodling having been evicted from Hästa gård in 2014. Some of the photos on the quilt are photos I took between 2010 and 2014 while following developments at Hästa gård at the time. The photos were also published in the report “Hästa gård – En bondgård på landet i staden” (A Farm on The Countryside in The City).

“A Farm on the Countryside in the City” is a series of works that engage with the particular environmental and social context of Hästa gård in Stockholm. Hästa gård is a 200+ hectare farm located in a cultural reserve surrounded by suburbs built during the “million programme” in the 1960s and 1970s. It’s Stockholm’s only working farm and one of the worlds largest urban farms, located within 5 minutes walk from the nearest underground station (Akalla).

The quilt was presented at a community meeting in September 2017 at Husby konsthall, an art space close to Hästa gård. At the community meeting former participants in Akalla ekoodling presented a citizen proposal for how ecological cultivation at Hästa gård and the surrounding cultural reserve could be developed in the future now that the current leaseholder is not getting a renewed contract from the city, which, in combination with a change of politics in Stockholm, potentially opens up new possibilities.