Inspired by local landscapes, [krig] are currently working on a project circling questions of prepper culture and its connection to textile craft, such as macrame and other textile techniques, as well as its relationship to local biotopes and vibrations generated by structures in them.
Inspired by doomsday-preppers videos on YouTube, in which people show pragmatic knowledge to survive in natural environments in moments of crisis, [krig] have started a process of exploring different landscapes (Lumsheden, Sweden 2020 and Blanca, Spain 2022) through creating textile constructions in local and natural material and by making piezo-recordings to pick up the vibrations of a place. The experience of being and creating in a new landscape, offers a shift in perspective which also lets them explore how an experience and a relationship to a landscape and ideas about its future are affected by current phenomenon such as climate change and war. In the end the experience is transformed into performances and installations. Slowly, they will build a collection of installations and performances, related to these landscapes and issues, as well as the time spent in them.
The process constantly asks new questions based on each meeting with a new landscape, and the process of working in relation to it. The first two places have generated work that revolve around issues such as how the use of plants and materials gathered in our immediate surroundings can ask questions about place, climate and an idea about the future? What natural materials can be found in different landscapes and are other human products, such as plastics and other synthetic materials, through its extensive presence, a part of our landscapes today?
When one is presented with a new landscape, the way of relating to a new environment is affected by a bodily experience that can consist of both weather, people and seasons. This creates a process that is affected by a moment in time, which in turn can create themes within the theme. For example, the constant rain, so rare in the Spanish village of Blanca, created an installation where water became central as well as the war we are now witnessing in Europe permeated the work whose themes overlap with a convulsive world where we can see how humanity’s greed attracts us to conflicts and climate change.
When looking for new macramé techniques, Youtube offers a wide range of instructional videos. It is a mixture of doomsday preparation, sailor craft and a contemporary wave of 70s wall decorations and hanging flower pots. Of particular interest is the phenomenon of men making “bushcraft”, a craft that sometimes consists of complicated macrame and delicately twisted threads, made of grass and natural fibers found in the wild. Inspired by this knowledge, they began to make their own textile material and collected fibers from local biotopes, an action that can be linked to an idea of taking advantage of where you are and living in harmony with its changing seasons. A perspective that is lacking in today’s society where materials are available at any time.
Photo by Camelia Vavassovi
When performing field recordings in the landscapes, they use both ordinary microphones and piezo elements to compose different soundscapes. The vibrations from the piezo elements are used in their performances as a ritualistic connection to the landscape. The piezo recordings ask questions about what is real through the skewed recording technique. What are they really recording? How does a landscape vibrate? How is information interpreted and what is distorted in the notion of the future?
This work was developed during the Residency Programme of AADK Spain, with funding from Konstnärsnämnden and with funding from Region Gävleborg.