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2018 - 2019 
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By hand and harrow, the soil of Open Akker is prepared - a stage is set. A “collection” of twenty-five distinct varieties of peasant grains sown seed by seed by the association Li Mestère. On the same field, a “peasant” mix of wheat and rye (masteluin) is wildly scattered by De Groentelaar to make flour for ‘resistance bread’ at the nearby mill. The plot resonates with different practices, temporalities and agencies by entangling millers with soils, seeds with late medieval paintings and observations with actions.
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*Costume and props made during periodic happenings by Futurefarmers, McCloud Zicmuse and Livia Cahn under the hosting care of Bosch Project in Brussels, Belgium.
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Open Akker is a multi-species gathering upon a small plot (of land) in the Pajottenland - the land where Pieter Bruegel the Elder portrayed peasants in The Harvesters and The Magpie on the Gallows. A rassemblement of farmers, seeds, soil, birds and trees flanked by a high-speed train and two roads in proximity to a watermill, form the scene of a series of actions. In intimate relation, this constellation enables the shift of a fallow field to a ‘new commons’ - a collectively farmed land dedicated to the propagation and multiplication of peasant seeds. 2018 - 2019 Open Akker was established in 2019 within the framework of Bruegel's Eye: Reconstructing the Landscape, an open-air exhibition in the Pajottenland in Dilbeek, Belgium. Fifteen contemporary artists and designers invited to look at the landscape through the eyes of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Open Akker was initiated by Futurefarmers as a durational public artwork enabling a slow, reflective process of repair, resilience and reflection on our habits of landuse. In collaboration with Livia Cahn, Tijs Boelens/De Groentelaar and Didier Demorcy/Li Mestère among others, our first season awakened this plot which is now a stage for things to come. Open Akker continues with new collaborators. |
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De Groentelaar is a small farm run by Tijs Boelens and Sander Van Haver who are working to re-establish a mix of grains once grown in this region in the time of Bruegel. Li Mestère is an association which gathers farmers, millers, bakers, connoisseurs, gardeners, consumers, scientists and researchers around the question of cereals. The association has members living in Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels; and collaborates with different associations, networks and scientific laboratories from Europe involved in Participatory Plant Breeding. In the alliance between farmer and seed: the kind of peasant farmer that the “peasant seeds” invokes is a farmer who sees the absurdity of big scale production. Who doesn't accept that the value of their grains would be fixed by the ona and only global market of grain prices. Being a peasant seed farmer is not in anyway a step back in time, to hark back to a romantic figure of a past peasant. It does not ignore the long history of grain selection, it navigates through this long history and crafts with the grains, tools, questions and preoccupations that animate them. A practice that defends a relationship with the land today - in the now, the now and the now.
Futurefarmers is the lead artists group of Open Akker. Futureefarmers are a group of artists, activists, scientists, farmers, and architects who work together to propose alternatives to the social, political, and environmental organization of space. Founded in 1995, Futurefarmers design studio serves as a platform to support art projects, an artist in residence program, and the research of its members. Futurefarmers use various media to deconstruct systems, visualize and understand their intrinsic logics, and offer more sustainable alternatives. Such systems may involve food policy, public transportation, or education. Livia Cahn is trained in urban anthropology and currently based in Brussels. Here she is a researcher, activist and gardener who works with and writes on soils and questions relating to land use. Co-author of “Terres des Villes, enquêtes potagères de Bruxelles au premières saisons du 21ième siècle” (éditions de l’éclat, 2017) and a series of picture essays on urban soils, she is a co-initiator of the seminar group: Ecologies de Bruxelles. |
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