Gathering Notes

What a does an (internal) gathering at Løkkegravene look like? As Ida Bencke writes, “The past few weeks have opened questions of what I could look like to work with materials, energies and desires already at hand as a way to bolster community and foster trans-local alliance; what it could mean to mobilize around questions of redistributive justice and what it could mean to inhabit and carry ancestral heritage forth into the future within a distributed and decentral exhibition space. Mostly, these weeks have tought me about the need to identify real needs and shared urgencies as a way of staying connected within sometimes disparate communities as a curatorial practice.”

Between sharing seeds and sharing food, sharing practices of hospitality and resource redistribution, and ways of learning and knowing a space; the curators and collaborators at Hosting Lands were hosted by Sophia Luna Portra at Løkkegravene between April 30th to May 4th’ 24. What a joyous space of shared joy, critique, and hospitality.

In a rare, but spontaneous, moment of translocal exchange, Åsa Sonjasdotter gifted Hosting Lands a bag of wild kale seeds to be used in the project. Captured in the header image, and in the gallery below, the note on the envelope onto the right reads - “Wild Kale seeds. From Ven, picked along the coast during Winter 2024, on remaining dried flower stalks. The kale travels with the ocean streams, and can be found along the Altantic coast, and beyond. Love Åsa.” Onto the left of the image we see Annette Holdeson’s basket, mud painting by Harvest School participants depicting old mango trees in India, dried potato cuts and mango seeds from Dharmendra Prasad’s village, a woven bouquet of wheat cobs by Åsa Sonjasdotter. Åsa also taught us about the vary manied wild edible plants in the estate, including nettles, dandelions, cowslip, and cherry blossoms. Food is always a throughline at our gatherings at Løkkegravene. From our long meals and gatherings around the wooden tables, to collectively cooking and sharing food, to seed exchanges and nettle foraging, to even Dharmendra Prasad bringing over and cooking for us dried potato cuts from his village in Bihar, India. These dried potato cuts are the staple food of the peasant community in his village, stored, processed and cooked in the monsoons when no other staples are readily available.

Below are images from the gathering. The first two decks of images are shot on an analog camera that Thea Møller Jensen brought to the space. Her way of gathering notes at Løkkegravene.

The gathering has been made possible by Bikuben Vision Exhibition Award, Globus Call Nordisk Kulturfond.