WEBINAR: Ringstad Cycles - Agricultural Issues and Contemporary Art Practice at the Edge of the Forest. Environmental Lunchtime Discussion
What insights can artistic approaches provide on agricultural issues? Artists Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen talks on connecting farming, life and growth to contemporary art, with Øvre Ringstad Farm in eastern Norway as an example.
Photo: Demolition of the barn at Øvre Ringstad Farm. Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen.
Øvre Ringstad Farm is a place to live, and to share with other people, plants and animals, in different scales. It’s a down to earth learning site. The farm is a pivot point for traditional small scale management of natural environment in accordance with seasonal changes. It is as well a place to harvest from thousands of years of neolithic culture. When merged with contemporary art, farming, life and growth can come to a focal point of change. Can small questions make big differences?
Parallel to individual works that include video, photography, sculpture, sound art, performance and installations, Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen mediate, write and transmit knowledges around artistic practices today. They founded Balkong in 1993, using their apartment as an exhibition space to question what art can be. The contexts and dialogues that artistic practices enable were central issues to their thinking. These home based experiences led to other activities. Together with artists from Thailand they initiated Sørfinnset School/ the nord land in Oarjelih Bájjdár/Gildeskål, Nordlánda/Nordland. Since 2003, this ongoing project focuses on the exploitation of nature, exchange of knowledge and small-scale architecture in the field of a broad aesthetical understanding of ecological realities of society, humans and nature.
Parallel to individual exhibition practices Søssa has worked long-term with radio and sound art projects in collaboration with Norwegian peer Yngvild Færøy; and Geir has nurtured a wide art practice informed by his Sámi ancestry. Since 2010 Øvre Ringstad is the center and point of their collaborative practice.
About the event series
The OSEH Environmental Lunchtime Discussion series consists of short, 10-15 minute presentations by invited guests, followed by a discussion. We invite speakers from a wide variety of fields, both academic and beyond. The presentations are accessible and are aimed at anyone with an interest in environmental issues. All are welcome.