Food Studio

Lately, I have been working on creating two collections for everyone behind the Future Library in Oslo. It has been an incredibly honourable assignment. To be allowed to dive into work with so much love, and to give care and love back to those behind it, is one of the finest invitations we have received this year.

A one-hundred-year perspective is not something we relate to very often. For me, however, it is very much alive through the fact that so many people who lived 100 years ago speak so strongly to me through their art. When Høvikodden first set up the exhibition with Hilma af Klint in 2015 I remember how stunned I was upon my first encounter with her art. I had to return and see it when it was exhibited at Louisiana. I had to watch the documentary and read the books; I wanted to understand every facet of this woman who clearly understood so much, in such a beautiful way. She managed to express it and protect it, so that we could receive it at a time when we would be ready for it, at least 20 years after her own lifetime. No one else has moved and inspired me so deeply. No one else communicates science, spirituality, and aesthetics so powerfully and clearly.

 

To be allowed to dive into work with so much love, and to give care and love back to those behind it, is one of the finest invitations we have received this year.

 

Lately, it has returned once again. This time through an author and by diving back into the old literary classics that I shared in my last newsletter “The Beacon”. At the same time, I am working on reviving a place, Vefaldneset, which had its heyday over 100 years ago. Created by a couple of artists, in their spirit, with all the love and knowledge they had for materials and craft techniques. It is so fascinating to think about, and I feel a great responsibility to succeed in preserving this and carrying it forward to the generations after me.

The man who created the place, Ola Heia, was not just an artistic soul; in the local dialect, they refer to him as a multi-artist, an original, and an inventor. You would have to look long and hard today to find that same creativity. In our time, perhaps people like Apple founder Steve Jobs are on the same level. The dining room at Vefaldneset is designed inspired by a wall clock he bought in Skien in every detail, from the wainscoting to the dining table and chairs. Parts of this history are represented at the local museum in Drangedal, the rest remains in the house we are currently restoring. He also started exporting live beavers, developed a beaver trap, storing the living animals both inside the old cottage and in the barn cellar; there are still traces of the madness on the posts in the cellar. And in his old age, he developed a patented walking stick that could shoot out seeds so that he could feel he was making himself useful.

The local bygdetun (rural museum) in Drangedal has taken on the role of being a museum for this experience, and you can visit and experience it there. But they have placed it in a room that actually reminds one more of our smokehouse from 1770, with log walls in old rose, and then something of this genius vision that Ola Heia’s work possessed is lost. For Ola Heia was more concerned with details than that—both the wainscoting is painted with graining, an imitation of precious types of wood, and marble in the fireplace. In my role of bringing the place back, I try not to necessarily always copy what he did, but rather think in his spirit translated to our time.

To both master the inventive innovation thinking at this level and the traditional artistry in so many styles—from woodcarving to rosemaling, blacksmithing, and textiles—while at the same time clearing so many acres of land that they received several awards for it, a transformation from forest to fertile agricultural land, is incredible. Are there examples of this degree of resourcefulness today? It is perhaps a bit sad that my innovation reference is a technology entrepreneur; does it mean that we have lost contact with the tangible and down-to-earth? We talk a lot about how important a regenerative mindset is, but how many master it at this level in so many forms?

I feel myself that I really do not master the 100-year perspective on all fronts. I have so many times felt the overwhelm when my friend and teacher Linda Jolly, who is based at Hengsenga on Bygdøy, has shared stories about her teacher Alan Chadwick, and his ability to plan a garden in such a way that there is always something in bloom throughout the entire year, or to imagine how the trees will look in 100 years. We have an old oak on our plot that is dying, and I think about those who planted it, how majestic it still is in the landscape, and how daunting it is that I now have to think so many years ahead and stand tall when I take over that honourable mission.

I have chosen to put my garden project at Vefaldneset on hold. I feel that I still have so much to learn, that my practice and connection with nature is not yet so closely linked to the landscape that I possess this ability. I have a hope that it will develop over time, through my own experience. I notice that when I weed the endless amount of ground elder in our little allotment garden now, there is a difference where we have added ground cover with leftover grass clippings; the roots cannot survive there, and weeding is much easier. A physically experienced knowledge I did not have before.

My husband has a lot of resistance to all these things because, for him, these are incomprehensible tasks on top of what already feels like chore work. Why should we have compost when it is so much hassle? Why can’t I just throw the grass into the compost? Why does it have to be spread around? I feel that we really don’t have the time now, that daily life in the house consumes all my energy where we are in life, with a daughter who is soon 5 years old, a life with three bases, and that everything is not quite coming together. But every little aha moment I have of “ah, so that’s why, now not only has my head heard that this is a good idea, but now my whole body has experienced why” then I know that I am one step closer to the ability Allan had to create landscapes for the generations after him.

If you don’t know his story or haven’t seen “The Biggest Little Farm”, it is highly recommended. I never picked up on who Allan was until I saw it. At one point in the film, I suddenly understood my teacher Linda on an entirely new level and where she came from. In biology, this is called imprinting, that a person can have such a great impact on you that you take up so much of their expression and pass it on. I believe we have so much to learn from the people who are capable of this hundred-year mindset, and I am so grateful that this year I can add a new person to my life, Katie Paterson, who is also capable of this.

 

About Future Library

Future Library 2014-2114 is a hundred-year-long work of art created by the artist Katie Paterson, unfolding in Oslo. A thousand trees have been planted in Nordmarka outside Oslo and will one day provide the paper for the Future Library. Each year until 2114, one author contributes a text that is kept unpublished until the collected publication in the centenary year. The manuscripts are stored in the Silent Room at the Deichman Library in Bjørvika, built from the trees that were felled in Nordmarka.

“We created the Silence Room with the trees that were felled in the forest and which still give off their scent. The atmosphere is key to the design. We have tried to create a sense of calm, peace, a thoughtful place that lets the imagination travel to the forest, to the trees, writing, deep time, the invisible connections, the mystery.” Katie Paterson, artist

We have shared the experience from both the dinner for the authors and the community dinner for the volunteers on our website. If you’d like to join us next time we create something at Losæter, just sign up for the next Community Brunch on Thursday 20 August which will be held here.