Kultivator is an experimental cooperation of organic farming and visual art practice, situated in rural village Dyestad, on the island Öland on the southeast coast of Sweden. By installing certain functions in abandoned farm facilities, near to the active agriculture community, Kultivator provide a meeting and working space that points out the parallels between provision production and art practice, between concrete and abstract processes for survival. Kultivator initiates and executes meetings between idealism and realism, hoping that fruitful cooperation’s should take form.
Artists’ and farmers’ collective Kultivator has worked with Botkyrka konsthall on a number of residencies, both in Fittja and in Cape Town. Their understanding of the intricate relationship between humans, animals and vegetation in cities and in rural areas has formed the basis of their work, celebrating the soil as the fundamental interface between society and nature.
In 2012, Kultivator participated in the group exhibition The Blue Planet – a green exhibition at Botkyrka konsthall and at Residence Botkyrka, they presented various urban compost ideas as part of the programme Fittja Open, such as a chicken coop and a raised compost bed installed outside of the residence apartment’s kitchen, as well as a worm tower for gerilla composting. Together with the University of Fine Arts/HFBK (Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg), the Royal Inst. of Art in Stockholm and OPENrestaurant they formed The Common Roof Kitchen.
In 2014 during the Fittja Pavilion, they collaborated with Steuart Wright from the grassroots initiative Red Hill Literacy Project, Cape Town, working with the soil of the garden, people’s movement between places and the concept of mental and spatial connection between the suburbs of Fittja (Stockholm) and Red Hill (Cape Town).
During the New Biennial for Art & Architecture in Botkyrka, Kultivator together with Steuart Wright (South Africa) and Adam Nyandikila Nkelanza, (Tanzania), gave a workshop where they discussed and worked around attitudes and practical ecology connecting kitchens and toilets. The closed system compost toilet will be repeated again in Kultivator’s upcoming project Open Cargo, a work that builds a grassroots infrastructure of small independent but connected residencies in respective community, connecting Fittja, Red Hill in South Africa, Mbeya in Tanzania and Dyestad, Öland, Sweden.
Residence Botkyrka is supported by Botkyrka byggen.