Symposium ‘Care of the Margins’, 2021, IT After having spent a few months in the artist residency of Robida in Topolò (IT), my interest for the concept of hosting, residing, dwelling grew over my interest to create individualistic work. Together with Robida Collective, (especially Vida Rucli) we developed the symposium ‘Care of Margins’.
The invited participants of the symposium came with valuable experiences, practises and ideas of how to rethink the existing model of an art residency (especially in marginal areas) to one which is more engaged with the site, the community it is embedded in, the land and its seasons, the needs of place and people and the ecosystem which holds it all together. As a retrospective, together with Francesca Lucchitta and Vida Rucli, a publication was made where contributions of participants, collective writings, drawings and sketches find a format to be passed on and learned from.
Seed ABC-Darium, edition 0, 2023, CH
Seed ABC-Darium is a bilingual glossary addressing terminology related to seeds and food sovereignty. The publication emerged from the aim to provide more precise vocabulary to discuss the complex world of seeds and seed politics. It presents terms in both English and German, reflecting existing language barriers by showing that some terms can’t be easily translated. Published as “Edition Zero” in a printrun of 30 copies, the work is explicitly presented as a draft intended for expansion and development, a starting point for building more comprehensive seed-related vocabulary.
Carrier Bags, since 2018
After having read ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ by Ursula K. Le Guin, containters have been all around me, i have become a container myself and couldn’t stop from making some. Here are three of about 10 bags.
Phenological Calendar, 2023, CHThe phenological calendar is a format with which to perceive time through the phenological seasons. Instead of working with the four seasons, this calendar offers an approximation to the complexity of the natural world by working with Winterly Rest, Pre-Spring, First Spring, Full Spring, Early Summer, HighSummer, Late Summer, Early Autumn, Full Autumn and Late Autumn. These ten phases of the natural yearly circle are called phenological seasons.
Ajda Pratika, Design Biennale Ljubljana, 2021, SVN
For 7 months i found myself working together with 7 others on a project for the production platform of the Design Biennale in Ljubljana under the title ‘Grains for Brains’.
With two others we designed the small booklet ‘Ajda Pratika’ (Buckwheat Almanack) and i was happy to share the Phenological Seasons in there as well as observation and gardening excersises linked to them.
During the opening days of the Design Biennale in Ljubljana we hosted different workshops such as a buckwheat seed planting day with Trajna collective at Krater, as well as a soba noodle workshop and a foraging course of wild family members of buckwheat.
The exhibition lasted until October 2022.
Soil / Soap, 2020, NL
S/oil Soap was part of the graduation project which was realised during the Bachelor TXT (Textile and Text) at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
Seed Letters, since 2020, E-MailIrregular half poetic, half informative E-Mails about what circles around me and the community i live and work with.
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Kim Lang
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part of Institut Plapamco
Kim Lang (b. 1993) is currently living and working in the east of Switzerland.
sweet you scrolled so far - thank you
Hempcrete Stool
An ongoing material research since 2023
Seed Folder, 2022, I Never Read, Art Book Fair Basel, CH
During the I Never Read, Art Book Fair Basel, i presented two Seed Folders where visitors could ‘read seeds’ with their bodies and flip through an edible seedlibrary based on buckwheat flour.
The pages consisted of 30% buckwheat flour, 10% spelt flour, 10% oatflakes and 50% seeds namely: sunflower, sesame, black sesame, poppyseeds, buckwheatseeds, hempseeds and flaxseeds. They came with a green spread contributed by Jack Bardwell.
a container, a hive, a home
Coiled during the Residency at Robida in Topolò (IT) in 2021.
Material: ‘capelli di fata’ - the fairy hair of the forsest (clematis) which blooms in spring and dries in autumn.
on containing, Stedelijk Museum, 2018, NL
“on containing” was presented in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, as a part of the Rietveld UNCUT exhibition, in March 2018. A tent of ceramic containers, an audio, a felted woolen floor, an invitation to relax and ‘just be’.
nomadic garden, 2019, Rietveld Academy, NL
The Nomadic Garden started in the courtyard of the Rietveld Academy (and later also Sandberg Institute) in 2019 on a sandy batch which hosted one big tree. Disturbed by the excessive amount of grey concrete and little greenery I initiated the ‘nomadic garden’, a garden that could be moved around the schoolyard depending on its practicability. Soon after the initiation the school asked me to remove the pots and a group of gardeners formed to fight for the garden to stay. Soon we were able to replace the sand with fertile soil and the ‘ground’ was set for the garden to flourish. Years later the garden is greener and bigger than ever and is called The Garden Department. “We exist as an outdoor classroom/garden on the campus of the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut, open for all students and staff to use. The garden itself is of an ongoing, unfolding design that has organic fruit trees and bushes, vegetables, herbs and perennial plants at its core. In the garden is a large wormery that will compost the school's organic waste. We are in the process of cultivating plants from seed in the windows of various departments and developing a mushroom farm as an indoor branch of the garden in the Rietveld building's basement.”
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