The festival “Seeds and citizens – an environmental humanities festival” offered a combination of scholarly presentations and citizen-oriented activities. It took place at Linköping University and Östergötlands Museum during 21 – 23 September 2018.
On 21 – 23 September 2018, The Seed Box organized an environmental humanities festival in Linköping for the first time. The aim was to bring the environmental humanities research outside the academic rooms. At the “Seeds and Citizens” festival, there were panel discussions, keynotes, art, music, debates and live action role-playing about environmental humanity and civic activism.
Seeds and Citizens
The festival “Seeds and Citizens / Folk och frö ” is the largest project implemented in The Seed Box activites during 2018 and a very important step in spreading knowledge about our activities outside of the academic spaces.
The communication before the upcoming festival was mostly about spreading both analogue and digital information about when and where the festival was going to happen and what it should contain. We made an event page on our homepage in both Swedish and English, as well as a short video trailer that we spread on Facebook and Twitter. There were also printed posters and flyers set up and spread at Linköping University, Östergötlands Museum and at various other places and events we participated in. Before the festival we also designed a press release that was sent to the press interested in Environmental Humanities and local media in Östergötland. The media attention was relatively good considering that it was the first time we organized a festival on the theme.
During the Seeds and citizens-festival we made several Facebook entries and tweets about what was going on at the festival, and most of the presentations and performances were filmed.
After the festival ended, most of the material that was filmed has been edited and published on The Seed Box’s digital platform. In total, there were fifteen films and reports from the festival and links to these films have since their release been promoted via the website, Facebook and Twitter.
Links:
The festival event on Facebook (English version)
https://www.facebook.com/events/255751631648029/
The festival event on Facebook (Swedish version)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1181213575352421/
”The Future of the Past, Or Making Room for New Natures”, Keynote from the festival by Dolly Jørgensen, Professor of History, University of Stavanger, Norway.
https://theseedbox.se/the-future-of-the-past-or-making-room-for-new-natures/
The Seed Box Speed presentations, a gathering page with links to videos of the eight speed presentations that were held during the first day of the festival.
https://theseedbox.se/the-seed-box-speed-presentations/
Video interview with Katja Aglert, who unveiled her latest work “Durational Fracture” at the Seeds and citizens-festival.
https://theseedbox.se/video-interview-with-katja-aglert/
Interview with Tina Gianquitto from Herbaria 3.0 about their artistic workshop at the Seeds and citizens festival.
https://theseedbox.se/herbaria-3-0-video-interview/
Interview about “Midsommarafton 2019” a live action role-playing game about environmental problems and human-environmental relations.
https://theseedbox.se/midsommarafton-2019-a-live-action-role-play-about-the-relationship-between-man-and-the-environment/
Food from an environmental perspective, filmed panel talk about food and environment
https://theseedbox.se/food-from-an-environmental-perspective/
Award winning poet Ida Börjel read some of her poetry on stage at the Seeds and citizens festival.
https://theseedbox.se/watch-ida-borjels-poetry-reading-from-seeds-and-citizens/
Nu! – “One Fine Day”, live music and video from the festival
https://theseedbox.se/video-nu-one-fine-day/
Linköping university helped us with a pressrelease and an article on their webpage:
Sveriges Radio P4 Östergötland visited Seeds and citizens:
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=160&artikel=7048556
Local newspaper Corren published an article about the festival:
https://www.corren.se/nyheter/behover-du-ha-ett-sugror-i-plast-om5477837.aspx
Aktuell Hållbarhet wrote an article about The Seedbox:
SVT Nyheter Öst wrote an article about Seeds and citizens:
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21 – Linköping University, KY24 (Key-huset).
09.30 Registration & coffee.
10.15 Welcome to Seeds and citizens, Jesper Olsson, program director of The Seed Box and the festival crew.
10.30 – 12.00 The Future of the Past, Or Making Room for New Natures. Keynote by Dolly Jørgensen, Professor of History, University of Stavanger, Norway. KY24.
12.00 – 13.00 Lunch
13.00 – 14.30 The Seed Box Speed presentations, Speed presentations of state-of-the-art research in the Environmental Humanities.
Presenters:
Marco Armiero & Roberta Biasillo, KTH, Sweden: Undisciplining humanities! Five years of bridging academia and communities with the Environmental Humanities Laboratory. Robert Boschman, Mount Royal University, Canada: The Lesson: The Traumas and Futures of Uranium City, Canada. Camille Dungy, Colorado State University, USA: Black in Nature: an African American Ecopoetic. Simon Pope, Goldsmiths University, UK: Discussion Island: exploring Toronto Island residents’ amphibiotic relationship to Lake Ontario through participatory art. Justin Makii, Linköping University, Sweden: Imploding Prions for the Environmental Humanities. Daniel Andersson, Linköping University, Sweden: The Nature of Technology in an Era of Global Environmental Challenges. Tina Gianquitto: Where can a plant take you? Åsa Ståhl & Kristina Lindström, Linneaus & Malmö University, Sweden: Un/Making Matters. Martin Hultman, Chalmers, Sweden: Are we all climate change denialists?
14.30 – 17.30 Workshop: a serious play with genres, TEM21
Interactive and experimental workshop on communication with Anna Kaijser and guest teachers. Using the same scientific article as point of departure, the participants will explore very different methods and formats, leading up to a discussion about how we communicate, and what we can learn from other genres. The invited guest teachers are Malin Eriksson – author of children’s books, Ida Börjel – poet, Anders Duus – dramaturge and Anneli Sundin – communicator at Stockholm Environment Institute.
—————————————————————————————-
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 22 – Östergötlands Museum
11.00 – 13.30 Artistic workshop. Lauren LaFauci, Tina Gianquitto and Dawn Sanders present their collaboratory project Herbaria 3.0 with plant-related drop-in art activities for children aged 5-12 and their parents (in English and Swedish). Rutan
11.00 – 16.00 Durational Fracture, Video, sound, text and performance by artist Katja Aglert, Kyrksalen.
11.00 – 16.00 The Final Repository: A Macroscopic Exploration, Exhibition and book presentation by artists C-J Erikson and Karin Willén, Nya Galleriet (in English).
11.00 – 16.00 Un/Making Matters, Exhibition with critical design researchers Åsa Ståhl and Kristina Lindström about their ongoing project on mass consumption and drinking straws (in English). Läsesalen
11.00 – 16.00 Forest confessions with Artificial Intelligence, Sound installation by artist Lenam Malmberg (in English). Runda Rummet in Westmanhallen
11.30 – 13.30 Midsommarafton 2019 – ett spel om relationen mellan människa och miljö, Free form role play with Jenny Fornell Hjelm (in Swedish). Östgötarummet.
11.30 – 12.00 Guided tour of the museum collections with environmental theme, with educators from Östergötlands museum (in Swedish).
11:30 – 12.50 Movie screening. ”Les Sauteurs / Those Who Jump” by Estephan Wagner, Wallenbergsalen.
12.30 – 14.00 Hantera din klimatångest, Workshop with psychologist Karin Kali Andersson (in Swedish). Läsesalen
13.00 – 13.30 Movie screening. Short movies on climate change in East Africa by Arghyro Paouri, CNRS-IIAC and Franziska Bedorf, REAL Project. Wallenbergsalen.
13.00 – 14:30 Guidad tur med tema Biologisk mångfald, a walking seminar on biodiversity in the park Trädgårdsföreningen with Rebecka LeMoine och Klas Schlichting, Naturcentrum Linköping (in Swedish). Gather at 13 at Lasarettgatan 1, or at 12:45 at the museum entrance. Naturcentrum Linköping
13.30 – 14.30 Movie screening. Documentaries by Bifrost, an environmental humanities intervention on climate change led by educators and researchers from the Nordic Network for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies working in collaboration with partners from civil society. Presented by Steven Hartman, Guest Professor in English, Mälardalen University. The presentation will also provide a virtual tour of Bifrost Online (bifrostonline.org) as a multimedia platform containing considerable environmental humanities, scientific and sustainability learning resources. Wallenbergsalen.
14.00 – 16.00 En bättre värld är möjlig, Storytelling workshop with author and creative writing teacher Malin Eriksson (in Swedish). Rutan
14.30 – 15.45 Movie screening. “The Free Sea” and “In the Vast Ocean of Air”. Film followed by a presentation by artist Hanna Husberg. “The Free Sea” is about Maldives’s future plans, an island that is expected to disappear due to rising sea levels, while “In the Vast Ocean of Air”, recorded on Svalbard, uses clouds to reflect on material exchanges and transformations taking place in the atmosphere. Wallenbergsalen.
14.00 – 16.00 Midsommarafton 2019 – ett spel om relationen mellan människa och miljö, Free form role play with Jenny Fornell Hjelm (in Swedish). Östgötarummet
SATURDAY EVENING ACTIVITIES AT HAGDAHLS KÖK (NEXT TO ÖSTERGÖTLANDS MUSEUM):
16:00 Vegan mingle buffet and welcome drink
17.30 – 18.15 Mat ur miljöperspektiv – panel talk about food and environment with David Kihlberg, Swedish Society for Environmental Conservation, Emma Lundberg from agricultural community Livslotten, Lennart Bjurström from Food for progress and Växtbaserat Sverige, Tina Schmid Neset from Environmental Science: Linköping University, and Björn Pihl, small-scale farmer (in Swedish).
18.30 – 19.15 Poetry by Ida Börjel (in Swedish).
19.30 – 20.30 Simply Dead, Live music with Per Wistbo Nibell, Janne Boman and Niklas Brännström
21:00 – 22.00 One Fine Day, Electronic music and audio/video experience with the band Nu!
———————————————————————————————————————-
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 23, Café Chocolat, Storgatan 54
10.00 – 11.00 Brunch Panel talk with Jesper Olsson, (Director of The Seed Box), Anna Kaijser (deputy director of The Seed Box), artist Katja Aglert, Robert Boschman (Mount Royal University, Canada) and Simon Pope (Goldsmiths University, UK).
11.00 – 12.00 Environmental Humanities quiz by students from the masters’ program in Science for Sustainable Development, Linköping University.
