These videos introduce the annual Back To The Land 2.0 summer school in Sweden that I run together with Konstfack (Cheryl Akner-Koler) and Annika Göran-Rodell. See also my Back To The Land 2.0 Reading List.
Xskool Talk 1: The Metabolic Rift (20m, 2014)
– the big picture: why we have a problem
– industrial food vs living systems vs financial systems
– metabolic rift as collective dis-association from living systems
Xskool Talk 2: Ecological Agriculture (17m, 2014)
– thousands of experiments; new values; new geographies,
– focus on the local > bioregions, foodsheds, watersheds
– ecological agriculture: activities
Xskool Talk 3: Social Farming (24m, 2014)
– food systems are social systems
– growing, distributing, preparing as collaboration
– connecting small actions, rooted in a place, with the bigger picture
– macro systems contain micro-activities
Social Food Forum, Matera, Italy (3m, 2019)
– 15 social food curators meet in Italy
Regenerative City DxCC at Tongji University, Shanghai (25m, 2018)
– cities in a larger context
– health of place = health of people
– urban-rural reonnection
How to connect cities and nature (Aarhus, 2m, 2018)
– look at a carrot in a restaurant
– do you know who grew it? and how?
The skills we need (Elisava, Barcelona, 2m, 2017)
– the most important quality in a designer? curiosity
– a trick to get head? get out of the studio and into the world
Design for a Bioregion (AtelierLUMA, France, 2m, 2017)
– making as connecting – especially with people who are not like you
– making as connecting with the land
– few of the answers we need will be found in peoples’ heads
Commoning Workshop (Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien, 9m, 2018)
– why we need a new ‘story of place’
– connecting small actions for large-scale change
Future Ways of Living (Milan Triennale, 65m, 2017)
– why we need a new story
– signals of re-connection (with the land, and with each other)
– bioregions as a living ‘frame’ for our work
– co-operation platforms as a way for diverse people to work together
The City and Its Bioregion (IAAC, Barcelona’s FabLab, 35m, 2016)
– why should an architect or urban planner even think about meatballs?
– a ‘smart city’ that does not think about food will soon be a dead city
– design ingredients for “Back To The Land 2.0”
City-Rural Connections (Abadir, Sicily, 3m, 2018)
– what steps could we take to reconnect city and rural?
– how might relational design enhance or multiply these connections?
From Biomedicine to Bioregion: The Geographies of a Care Economy
(UC Berkeley, California, Dean’s Lecture, 1h, 2016)
– why caring for place is a story that reconnects people, health, and context
– from Small to Big: signals of transformation
– going with the flow
Thinking Like A Forest: A Design Agenda for Bioregions
(School of Visual Arts, New York, 50m, 2015)
– what does a “leave things better economy” mean in practice?
– how designers are contributing to this new economy, right now
From Biomedicine to Bioregion: The Geographies of a Care-Based Economy
(UC Berkeley, California, Dean’s Lecture, 1h, 2016, 1h)
– a story that reconnects
– signals of transformation
– from Small to Big
– going with the flow
Back to the Land 2.0 Reader (2019)
This reader is prepared for the annual Back To The Land 2.0 summer school in Sweden that I run together with Konstfack (Cheryl Akner-Koler) and Annika Göran-Rodell. See also a selection of my recent talks here.
Annie Proulx on Barkskins
Or, how we first got the idea that the earth’s resources are limitless. Proulx’s story begins with the arrival in “New France” – the vast tract of north America and Canada colonised by the French between the 16th and 18th centuries. Two young men set out to earn their freedom by clearing an area of forest; they are soon awestruck by the imposing, often impenetrable and seemingly limitless extent of the forest.
Simone Weil on The Need for Roots
“Rootedness in a place is the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future.”
Pamela Mang on Storying of Place
“What makes a shift to true sustainability possible is the power of the connection between people and place. Place is a doorway into caring. Love of place unleashes the personal and political will needed to make profound change. It can also unite people across diverse ideological spectra because place is what we all share: it is the commons that allows people to call themselves a community. In every place, geology and nature interweave over time with human history and culture to create a place’s recognizable character and nature—its essence. Understanding these patterns helps reveal new possibilities for how to live in partnership with place, growing a future of greater abundance and creativity for all life”.
Street Food
A wonderful series of short (30′) films on Netflix.
Social Food Atlas
Among the key takeways: