[In & Beyond Sweden. Photo: Albin Dahlström / Moderna Museet 2018]

IN & BEYOND SWEDEN: Journeys Through an Art Scene is a book published in connection The Moderna Exhibition 2018. It offers glimpses into a diversity of artistic practices through presentations of in total 65 artists.

During two years curator Joa Ljungberg and artist Santiago Mostyn has done comprehensive research with the aim to survey the Swedish art scene. In addition to the artist presentations the publication presents their explorative process and includes 13 essays which give different insights into the Swedish art scene. The book is produced in collaboration with Iaspis / Konstnärsnämnden and Moderna Museet.

Below is the short presentation of my practice included in the book, written by artist and writer Frida Sandström:

[The Azolla Cooking and Cultivation Project, 2017]

In his art and research activities, Erik Sjödin interweaves political development with the ecological via the term “culture” and its etymological root “cultivation”. Through practical interactive workshops such as building, cooking and study circles, the relationship between politics and ecology is demonstrated. Nothing is explicitly emphasised during the events, but the audience is touched by a subtle reminder that society could think differently.

In his work with a wide range of professions and participants, Erik Sjödin explores man’s historical relationship to base phenomena such as fire, as well as our ability and long tradition of cultivating and preparing food made of water plants. In The Azolla Cooking and Cultivation Project (2017) he focuses on the little aquatic duckweed fern (Azolla). The plant has been used as bio-fertiliser in Asian rice plantations and is seen as a possible future food source in the potential colonisation of Mars. For the exhibition Agoramania in Paris (2017), Sjödin had rice cakes made of the same fern, which had been picked in the city’s botanical gardens Jardin des Plantes, and served them to the audience. Currently Sjödin is working on a documentary video project about beekeeping in Iceland, where he uses the medium to explore the biopolitical implications of beekeeping. Can our relationship to bees say something about how we treat each other?