[Soup and clay bowls hand shaped by Linus Ersson] 

Fire-making, agriculture, pottery, astronomy, were marvellous collective leaps: dominations rather than adaptations. For thousands of years men must have dreamed, vainly, of further short-cuts and controls. 

     – Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization. 

On the evening of the full moon on November 4 2017, artists and researcher Erik Sjödin and artist and craftist Linus Ersson hosted a Full Moon Gathering at Losæter in Oslo. By cooking and serving soup from vegetables harvested at Losæter Erik and Linus explored connections between fire, pottery, cooking, and agriculture. 

[Pressure cooking beans from Losæter on a rocket stove] 

The soup was cooked on a mobile wood fired rocket stove kitchen which is part of the project “We Still Carry the Fire”, in which Erik Sjödin explores various human relationships to fire by creating opportunities for social interaction and cooking using fire. 

The soup was served in clay bowls produced by Linus Ersson especially for the Full Moon Gathering, using basic and rapid pottery techniques. Early pottery had rounded bottoms to avoid cracking while burning. As a nod to prehistoric time, before tables were invented, the bowls bottoms were kept rounded, making them challenging to rest on the table while eating. 

Heat-resistant pottery was discovered independently in Asia and Africa around twenty and ten thousand years ago respectively. It enabled humans to cook, store, and eat food in new ways and thus consume a more diverse and nutritious range of food, in particular plant based food. A development that contributed to a shift from nomadic hunting and gathering toward a more settled living with domestication of plants and farming. 

[Full Moon Gathering in Oslo November 2017] 

Thanks to Flatbread Society and Marius Presterud for facilitating the Full Moon Gathering and baking flatbread, and to Sara Björke for helping out with the vegetables.

[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.

[Campfire in Iceland. Photo: Erik Sjödin]

This unassuming fireplace and the surrounding forest are actually quite special. Only a mere 1-2 percent of Iceland is covered with forest, which provides for relatively few forest camp fire spots.

[Reforestation site in Iceland. Photos: Erik Sjödin]

When human settlers first arrived to Iceland in the 9th century they cut down all the forest that was there in the first two three hundred years, to clear land for grazing and cultivation, and to use the wood for fuel and construction.

Forests on Iceland haven’t recovered anywhere near the 25-40% that used to cover Iceland before the settlers came, but they are slowly growing because of reforestation efforts started mainly to help agriculture by stabilizing soils and reduce desertification, and for timber production. The official goal is to reach 12% forest cover by 2100.

The photos below are from Oslo Apiary & Aviary‘s hideout at Kunstnerenes Hus in Oslo, and Thomas Pausz‘s studio in Reykjavik, collaborators in the Northern Bumbling network.

[Oslo Apiary & Aviary at Kunstnerenes Hus in Oslo.]

[Thomas Pausz’s Studio in Reykjavik.]

[The Azolla Cooking and Cultivation Project at Agoramania. Photo: Erik Sjödin.]

On Saturday September 30 at 14:00 artist and researcher Erik Sjödin will be cooking Azolla rice crackers in the Agoramania exhibition in Paris. There will also be a video message from philosopher Ségolène Guinard who will be commenting on Azolla in the context of multispecies communities in space exploration.

Azolla is not eaten today but because of it’s fast growth rate and nutritional content it has been suggested as a potential food stuff for settlements on Mars. Azolla does however have a long history of being used as a biofertilizer in rice paddies in Asia. By cooking and tasting Azolla rice crackers we will explore if Azolla has potential to be used as a nutritional additive in rice based food such as rice crackers, rice bread, and rice noodles. Aside from nutrition and taste, if this is a good idea is assuming that Azolla does not contain any toxic substances, which might be the case but needs to be further researched.

[Exhibition in The Old Library Art and Culture Project.]

During the village festival in Drangsnes, Iceland artist and researcher Erik Sjödin showed a selection of videos from visits to beekeepers in Iceland. The videos were shown in the old village library, which is now a space for art and culture activities and for selling local produce and craft.

the videos were displayed on tablets borrowed from the middle and upper school in Drangsnes. I used all of the seven small tablets the school had, which is about one for every student in the school.

[Apiary at Íslenski bærinn. Video: Erik Sjödin.]

The videos, like the ones above and below, are work in progress from Settlers, a project that explores the context of beekeeping in Iceland. They show apiaries in Iceland with comments from beekeepers on the particular circumstances of beekeeping on Iceland. More videos can be found here.

[Apiary in Hveragerði. Video: Erik Sjödin.]

Beekeeping is for various reasons not yet established in Iceland (it could be the weather). However an increasing number of people are making efforts to import and keep bees. This summer a new shipment with seventy something bee colonies arrived by airplane to Iceland from Åland, an island group in the Baltic sea. If these bees survive and reproduce it could mean that beekeeping is established in Iceland. If they don’t it will be one of several attempts to import bees that have not succeeded in creating a sustainable honeybee population in Iceland.

Thanks to Marta Guðrún Jóhannesdóttir for arranging the exhibition in The Old Library Arts and Culture Project during the village festival in Drangsnes, and for opening up the school in Drangsnes as a residency during the students summer leave. To Bjartni for leaving the bottle of home made dandelion sherry open during the exhibition. To the interviewed beekeepers, and to Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Culture Point and the Swedish-Icelandic Co-operation Fund for supporting my travels to work with this project on Iceland.

[Northern Bumbling at Losæter, Oslo. Photos: Erik Sjödin]

Using the bakehouse and the surrounding grain field at Losæter as a model for a shared multi-species space, the self-organised Northern Bumbling art, research, and design network presented recent research and work in progress followed by a discussion around their various projects and practices.

Marius Presterud (Norway) presented functional art pieces used in his practice Oslo Apiary & Aviary.

Erik Sjödin (Sweden) presented ‘The Political Beekeeper’s Library’, an effort to collect, organise, and activate books where parallels are drawn between how bees and humans are socially and politically organised.

Thomas Pausz (Iceland) showed ritualistic artefacts to interact with nature beyond utilitarianism.

The Northern Bumbling network, and the individual work of the participants in the project, is supported in part by Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Culture Point and the Swedish-Icelandic Co-operation Fund, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and the Norwegian Culture Council.

[Northern Bumbling at Slakthusateljéerna, Stockholm. Photos: Erik Sjödin]

Opening up the project room at Slakthusatljéerna for a one evening only exhibition the participants in the self-organised Northern Bumbling art, research, and design network presented recent research and work in progress followed by a discussion around their various projects and practices.

Erik Sjödin (Sweden) presented promotional material from the bumble bee mail order industry, making visible contemporary human – insect relationships in agriculture.

Thomas Pausz (Iceland) presented work investigating real and imaginary overlaps between human and insect architecture, from scientific enquiries creating artificial conditions for interspecies collaborations to the dystopian imaginary of insects invasions in films.

Marius Presterud (Norway) presented work in progress from his ‘Nature as History’ series, where he uses the Northern marches surrounding Oslo as a springboard for speculative interventions.

The Northern Bumbling network, and the individual work of the participants in the project, is supported in part by Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Culture Point and the Swedish-Icelandic Co-operation Fund, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and the Norwegian Culture Council.

[Northern Bumbling at The Nordic House, Reykjavik. Photos: Erik Sjödin]

Using the public greenhouse and the surrounding wetlands at The Nordic House in Reykjavik as a model for a shared multispecies space, the participants in the self-organised Northern Bumbling art, research, and design network presented recent research and work in progress followed by a discussion around our various projects and practices.

Erik Sjödin (Sweden) has been immersing himself in the context of beekeeping in Iceland and presented a selection of video material recorded while meeting with beekeepers on Iceland, highlighting both problematic and hopeful aspects of beekeeping in Iceland.

Thomas Pausz (Iceland) continued his work on Animal Architecture and presented work imagining crossovers with the modernism of Alvar Aalto, the architect of the Nordic House, and the building methods of specific insect species.

Marius Presterud (Norway) presented work from his ‘Nature as History’ series, using the Northern marches surrounding Oslo as a springboard for speculative interventions.

The Northern Bumbling network, and the individual work of the participants in the project, is supported in part by Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Culture Point and the Swedish-Icelandic Co-operation Fund, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and the Norwegian Culture Council.

The Political Beekeeper’s Library is an effort to collect, organise, and present books where parallels are drawn between how bees and humans are socially and politically organised. This book introduces the library with an essay by Erik Sjödin followed by a catalog with quotes and covers from the twenty-six books currently included in the library.

Available as paperback at Amazon EU / US and from Publit, and as a website.