(p)Art of the Biomass is a collaborative art and research platform for transdisciplinary explorations, where art, ecology, science, and the humanities can meet and frolic. The platform is based in Sweden and was initiated by artist and gardener Malin Lobell and artistic researcher Janna Holmstedt. Long-term collaborators include director and film maker Karin Wegsjö, and the soil activist and permaculturist Jenny Salmson. We explore multispecies relations, co-cultivation, speculative futures, and participatory processes through arts-based methods where we always get our hands dirty.
In collaboration with art organisations, researchers, marine biologists, growers, and other curious-minded people, we have develop exploratory labs, exhibitions, festivals and public adventures. Nordic venues and partners include, among others, Malmö Art Museum, Österängen Art Gallery, ArtLab Gnesta, Mossutställningar, Gylleboverket, NOBA – Norwegian BioArt Arena, and Lund University. We are members of ecoartspace, The Posthumanities Hub, and Kollektiva Hjärnan – initiatives that each in their own way connect locally grounded practices with international networks.
Ongoing work include Window to the Underground, an art and science collaboration led by soil ecologist Edith Hammer, with her team at Lund University, The Soil Chip Project, and Holmstedt & Lobell. To Wash an Island – A Story About Undesirable Heritage, a filmic journey to Gipsön, an artificial island made of phosphogypsum, a waste product from manufacturing fertilizer for agricultural use, by Holmstedt, Lobell & Wegsjö. Compost-o-scene, exploring multispieces conviviality, natureculture heritage, and entangled, hidden life through microbial composting as a form of ceremony and ecosocial sculpture, with Holmstedt, Lobell & Salmson.
Malin Lobell combines her skills as artist and gardener, and has been working with plant-human relations for more than fifteen years. She has initiated and facilitated community gardens, and creative collaborations with researchers, schools and municipalities. She is also involved in the Nordic art project Skifte.Land that focuses on land reforms, land use and regenerative agriculture.
Janna Holmstedt is an artist and artistic researcher, with an interest in interspecies communication, media ecologies, listening as a situated practice, and art as a form of field philosophy through which multispecies conviviality and the cultivation of environmental care and attention can be explored. In the field of environmental humanities, she has conducted transdisciplinary research at KTH Royal Academy of Technology, National Historical Museums in Sweden, and Royal Academy of Music (KMH), Stockholm.
Karin Wegsjö received her education at The Dramatic Institute in Stockholm. She is the author of a large number of short features and documentary films which have been screened internationally; among others the Guldbagge award nominated film Bucharest’s Discreet Charm and the Guldbagge and Golden Gate award winning short film “A Part of the World that is Yours”. Wegsjö also writes and directs for the stage. Her films and performances engage with existential and societal concerns and transitions, where the personal is entangled with the political.
Jenny Salmson is a permaculturist and soil activist with a background in the climate organizations Klimataktion and Klimax. She is a certified permaculture designer, and has trained as a Soil Food Web Lab-Tech with microbiologist Dr. Elaine Ingham. She initiates and runs pedagogical co-cultivations in the association Odla Ihop, which has several large cultivation sites in the Stockholm region. She creates edible gardens and develops the sites with micro-life-focused composting methods, permacultural techniques, and through the cultivation of old wheat varieties and biodiversity-enhancing meadow areas. She holds workshops and conducts ongoing pedagogical and organizational work.
CONTACT US
Malin Lobell: info[at]malinlobell.se
Janna Holmstedt: mail[at]jannaholmstedt.com
Karin Wegsjö: karin[at]wegsjo.se
Jenny Salmson: jenny.salmson[at]odlaihop.se