‘Maaland’: Renewable worklab, 15-18th July 2013, Kemiö/Kimito, SW Finland
In cooperation with RIXC Centre for New Media Culture
What does it mean to have a piece of land to experiment upon, to care for, and have responsibility under/over/inbetween? The land is a substrate for organisms under/over and inbetween it’s surface. It is a double-bind relationship: The land looks after you, and you look after the land. It’s Maaland.*
In Finland, many people own small pieces of land and forest, often inherited.. Literally, passed-along family trees. Imagine it may be possible to de-fragment the land, bringing it under common management, like a hard-disk. What would be the protocols of access and retrieval of information? What might be the open-source ‘code’, ‘hardware’ or ‘wetware’ that comes with the land?
Organised within the context of RIXC’s Renewable Network and Pixelversity 2013 theme ‘Techno-ecologies’, including resilient agricultural infrastructure, art+bio-science collaborations, agroforestry, open hardware, and Commons management, we made an open call for participants to engage directly with the above subjects or initiates infrastructure which can support the exploration of these subjects.
The 4-day schedule of activities is open plan (see latest draft below), and may change.
A group of ~15 persons from different backgrounds and interests will gather on Kemiönsaari/Kimitoön in South-west Finland, to explore this double-bind relationship from different perspectives. Hosted by Kimito-proto-dojo house, a personal house of 2 families, and includes a wood/materials workshop, mini-fablab, indoor & outdoor workspaces. From 8-10 remote international participants will also join the occasion in online video-chat spaces, sharing a bit of their land and experience with us. See list of participants below.
* Maaland combines both the Finnish & Swedish words for land used in SW Finland.
Contacts
Tuomo Tammenpää: tuomo.tammenpaa[-at-]gmail.com, +358 (0)40 525 4636
Mikko Laajola: mikko[-at-]pixelache.ac, +358 (0)44 026 1631
Andrew Paterson: andrew[-at-]pixelache.ac, +358 (0)50 402 3828
Rasa Kavaliauskaitė: rasa[-at-]pixelache.ac
Schedule
CHECK HERE FOR LATEST UPDATES: http://tiny.cc/pv13-maaland
REMOTE CONNECTION INFO: http://tiny.cc/maaland-remote
/// La-Su / Sat-Sun 13-14.7. Arriving..
Arrivals to Kemiö and Kimito-proto-dojo house
/// Ma / Mon 15.7. Day 1 of practice / research activities
Programme at Kimito-proto-dojo house
11-12: Introduction to the week together
12-13: Lunch served
13-18:
* Write & produce collaboratively video clip document of Maaland, of the local land
* Starting note-gathering (‘tieto-talkoot’) on artist/maker-run projects related to land.
* Starting a think-tank process for data/harddrive management if the land is deframented.
1830-1900: Dinner served
19-21: Evening: Remote connections (Drop-in semi-public event)
* Mari Keski-Korsu (Helsinki/Tunnila, E. Finland)
* Dougald Hine, Dark Mountain / Uncivilisation festival (London, UK)
/// Ti / Tues 16.7. Day 2 of practice / research activities
Programme at Kimito-proto-dojo house
12-13: Lunch served
13-18:
* Wind Turbine repair talkoot/workshop by Peter Kuria Githinji
1830-1900: Dinner served
19-21: Remote connections in the evening (Drop-in semi-public event)
* to be confirmed
* to be confirmed
/// Ke / Wed 17.7. Day 3: Presentations
Programme at Kimito-proto-dojo house
12-13: Lunch served
1230-1330: Remote connections at lunchtime
* to be confirmed
* to be confirmed
Programme at Kulttuurikeskus Villa Lande auditorium
16:00-17:00: Introduction & remote connections
* Introduction by Tuomo Tammenpää
* Rasa Smite, Raitis Smits (RIXC, Salinas, Kurzeme, Latvia)
* Mathieu Vrijman & Malin Lindmark-Vrijman (Kultivator, Öland, Sweden)
17:00-18:00: Screening of ‘The Wedding between Art & Agriculture’ documentary (2011, 39mins) by Thomas Gunnar Bagge (DK)
18:00-18:15: Introduction to ‘Seeds Underground Party’ by Shu Lea Cheang (US/FR)
Programme at Kimito-proto-dojo house
1900-2100: Seeds Underground Party
/// To / Thurs 18.7. Day 4: Future planning
Programme at Kimito-proto-dojo house
12-13: Lunch served
1230-1330: Remote connections at lunchtime
* to be confirmed
* to be confirmed
13-18:
* to be confirmed.
1830-1900: Dinner served
/// Pe / Fri 19.7. Day 5: Leaving..
Many of the group will return to Helsinki, and head later to Jättömaa/Wasteland Festival in Kouvola, SE Finland
Location / Venue
Our host venue is ‘Kimito-proto-dojo’ house, a personal house of 2 families, and includes a wood/materials workshop, mini-fablab, indoor & outdoor workspaces. Lodging can be experimental, including tents & shelters. Food will be collectively organised, and participants will be expected to help with food preparation, serving and cleaning up duties.
Address: Address: ‘Kårkulla’, Pedersåvägen 215, 25700 Kemiönsaari/Kimitoön, Finland
Google Streetview: http://goo.gl/maps/6P8er
Google Maps: http://goo.gl/maps/rKBFS
Open Street Maps: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/24438261
NB: Wednesday afternoon events at Villa Lande (Engelsbyntie 8, 25700 Kemiö): http://www.villalande.fi/
and also site of organising partner Lalla Vinde: http://www.lallavinde.fi/
Communications
* Short-link for this page: http://tiny.cc/maaland
* Latest updates on event schedule: http://tiny.cc/pv13-maaland
* During 15-18.7. we will maintain a channel on IRC (Freenode network), Channel #maaland
* Related Facebook event for the week.
* Twitter/Facebook hashtag: #maaland
Participants
/// Confirmed present locals & currently based in Finland
Tuomo Tammenpää, Pixelache/Lalla Vinde (Kemiö): http://misusage.org | http://www.lallavinde.fi/ | http://www.ohanda.org/
Sari Kippilä, Lalla Vinde (Kemiö): http://www.lallavinde.fi/
Antti Ahonen, Pixelache/Koelse (Helsinki): http://anttiahonenphotography.com | http://koelse.org
Peter Kuria Githinji, SHALIN Finland ry (Helsinki): http://www.shalinry.org
Heikki H. Attila, Suomi puhtaaksi/Lets Do It World (Tampere): http://www.talkoot.suomipuhtaaksi.fi/ | http://www.letsdoitworld.org/
Aino Toivettula (Kemiö): http://www.arsnet.net/ainotoivettula | http://www.kimito.fi/arkipelagworkshop/
Ilari Toivettula (Helsinki/Kemiö)
Niko Punin (Kemiö)
Tuisku Torkkeli (Kemiö)
Andrew Gryf Paterson, Pixelache (Helsinki): http://agryfp.info
Mikko Laajola + Verne Laajola, Pixelache (Helsinki)
Rasa Kavaliauskaitė, Vilnius Art Academy/Pixelache intern (Vilnius/Helsinki)
Rehab Hazgui, Pixelache (Tunis/Helsinki)
Lilli Tölp, Estonian Art Academy/Bioart Society intern (Tallinn/Helsinki)
Jana Pejoska (Helsinki)
/// International guest present
Shu Lea Cheang, Seeds Underground Party, CycleX (New York/Paris)
“Seeds underground holds seed exchange parties where packets of seeds change hands and go underground in the fields across nation borders. Bring your harvested, acquired seeds of sorts to this after-work party! Sign on to trade seeds, to adopt and germinate, to broadcast and track their distribution. Bring your music, pump up the volume, seeds go underground as we party. Tales of seeds are shared while waiting for the sprouts to rise up in early daybreak.” Shu Lea Cheang describes herself as: Artist. conceptualist. filmmaker. networker. She constructs networked installation and multi- player performance in collective mode. She drafts sci-fi narratives in her film scenario and artwork imagination.”
http://www.mauvaiscontact.info/ | http://www.seedsunderground.net/ | http://accidental-landing.mobi | http://cyclex.info
/// Confirmed remote participants
Rasa Šmite, Raitis Šmits (RIXC, Salinas, Kurzeme, Latvia)
“RIXC was established on May 2000 on the basis of E-LAB (Centre for electronic arts and media, since 1996). The basic activity of RIXC is to initiate the most novel and current topics in digital art by performing innovative experimental projects in art, science and technology in Latvia and internationally. RIXC fosters cultural exchange as well as promotes new forms of cultural and artistic expression. RIXC approaches new media not only as a new field of artistic and cultural practice, but also as an infrastructure to support other forms of art and culture.”
https://renewable.rixc.lv | http://rixc.lv
Mathieu Vrijman & Malin Lindmark-Vrijman (Kultivator, Öland, Sweden)
“Kultivator was founded in 2005 by the artists Mathieu Vrijman and Malin Lindmark Vrijman and the farmers Maria Lindmark och Henric Stigeborn. Member since 2007 is also Marlene Lindmark. Kultivator initiate and execute projects, exhibitions and workshops that explores possible alternative narratives within art and farming, with the members or/and invited guests and the public. At site on Öland, Sweden, Kultivator has a residency, exhibition space and a dairy farm with 30 cows + chicken, ducks, sheep and horses. Since the start in 2005, approximately 80 artists, researchers and farmers has visited and worked on the premises”
http://kultivator.org
Dougald Hine, Dark Mountain / Uncivilisation festival (London, UK)
“The Dark Mountain Project is a network of writers, artists and thinkers who have stopped believing the stories our civilisation tells itself. We see that the world is entering an age of ecological collapse, material contraction and social and political unravelling, and we want our cultural responses to reflect this reality rather than denying it.”
http://dark-mountain.net/ | http://uncivilisation.co.uk/
Vanessa Gocksch, Intermundos, El ensueno, (Palomino, Colombia)
“El Ensueño is a 15 hectar rural laborary and living space located on Palomino river, one hour walking distance from the Palomino village in the Guajira department of Colombia. El Ensueño was bought by Intermundos in 2009 and has since been in a process of recuperation and habilitation. El Ensueño is being developed together with Felipe Rague (and family!) from Ereciclaje; experts and pioneers in Colombia working with recycling and perma-culture”
http://intermundos.org/el-ensueno/
Dimitris Kitsikopoulos, IppofaesPlus, (Greece)
“Ippofaes Plus is an initiative that mainly, brings together sea buckthorn farmers in order to exchange ideas, experiences and hopefully to proceed to collaboration on selling, promoting and other activities. The model proposed is the Cooperative entrepreneurship model, but this is the destination. The vehicle to get there is a new type of Greek farmer that has an ‘Open Agri-CULTURE’ and the fuel of this vehicle is the free exchange among farmers of information, farming practices, mistakes, ideas and even feelings.”
http://www.ippofaesplus.com
Irene Agrivine, House of Natural Fiber (Jogyaakarta, Indonesia)
“The house of natural fiber, yogyakarta new media art laboratory, was founded in 1999. Our main focus is artistic development and innovation of the arts. We intend to achieve this goal especially by introducing new media art projects and workshops to the cultural environment of Yogyakarta. Every program is aimed at interactivity with the people and their social and cultural environment. The Cellsbutton festival, focuses on education and intends to relate this to both national and international developments within the field of new media arts.”
http://ix.natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton/
Mari Keski-Korsu (Helsinki/Tunnila, E. Finland)
“I have declared one hectare of clear-cutted forest to be a Clear- cut Preservation for the next 70 years. This is the time a tree grows to be big enough to be cutted in intensive forestry. The area is located in Tunnila village, Finland. Planting, thinning and timbering of the trees is forbidden. So far there have been one illegal thinning in the preservation. I have a camera in the Clear-Cut Preservation to record tree growth. It takes still images in one hour intervals. This is probably the longest reality-show in history. Mari Keski-Korsu (mkk) is an transdisciplinary artist. She explores how ecological and socio-economical changes manifest in people’s everyday life. Her works have a political nature with a humorous twist. The basis of the work is in location, a place and people’s relations to it.”
http://artsufartsu.net
Serena ‘Muthi Reed, ‘Crop Rotation’ at CycleX, DAT Green Lab (Philidelphia, USA)
“CROP Rotation Cycle project, as an artistic collaboration between textile, installation and performance artist Rachel Schaffran and media maker Serena ‘Muthi Reed, brought a holistic interdisciplinary sensibility and shared interest in nature, the body, working in community and sustainable living. Serena Reed was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Philadelphia, PA during the 1980s, which inspired a lifelong interest in the architecture and stories of industrial ruin. Educated primarily as a sociologist Reed has worked largely as a community-based media maker as well as visual artist. Her current work focuses on recycle, reclaim and reuse aesthetics in art & culture, investigating how both material matter and people’s embodiment of space inscribes narrative and performance codes”
http://datgreenlab.org | http://phillyhomegrown.net
David Li (Hackspace Shanghai, China)
“Hackspace Shanghai has eXtreme Farming experiments: We have a piece of land that is divided into about 20 x 200 SqM greenhouse. We are getting people to try their best ideas to make the green house productive. They are free to deploy any organic method. No chemical fertilizer or pesticide/herbicide. We have people interested in doing natural farming (one straw revolution), soil food web, aquaponics, biodynamic and more. They are also aiming for the integration of Aquaponics as a hub for organic waste management in the factory and residential complex.”
http://xinchejian.com/
/// Only video contributions
Thomas Gunnar Bagge (Lerbæk, Storstrom, Denmark)
“The Wedding Between Art & Agriculture is a documentary by Thomas Gunnar Bagge about Kultivator, an experimental cooperation of organic farming and visual art practice, situated in rural village Dyestad, on the island of Öland, Sweden. In the summer of 2010 Kultivator initiated The Wedding Between Art and Agriculture, an artist conference and public ceremony which intended to unite the two ancient activities. The film shows the preparation process before the wedding ceremony – with flashbacks to a variety of agricultural and social projects that Kultivator have initiated, and thus gives a glimpse into the experimental and idealistic world of Kultivator. Thomas Gunnar Bagge is a visual artist, filmmaker and curator. He was educated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam.
http://www.thomasbagge.dk
Jukka Peltokoski (Tampere, Finland)
Jukka Peltokoski works as an educational designer and adult educator in KSL Civic Center for Adult Learning which is leftist third sector organization in Finland. Peltokoski has been active in many social movements from environmentalism to precarity issues and basic income initiative. Recently Peltokoski has been founding a new political research platform Commons.fi which is meant to deal widely with commons and p2p issues. Peltokoski’s personal interests lie especially in the questions concerning new cooperativism and commons related social and political struggles.
http://www.commons.fi/
Event is supported by:
By Andrew Gryf Paterson