Can birds, which with a few beats of its wings, seamlessly move across national borders, provide a key to a different relationship to belonging, place, land and earth? In Koster Islands the Swedish artist collective Gylleboverket, aka Etta Säfve and Jona Elfdahl, examined a co-existence with place and land and, by trying to sync up with birds as beings, the possibilities of how to approach an extended ecological self that goes beyond time and space. The work in The Conference of the Birds is both a series of cinematic rituals, a rite of transformation and a social sculpture where they work with the local population in Koster islands on the Swedish west coast.
Gylleboverket’s explorations in The Conference of the Birds has taken form in social sculptures, ritual presence, performance, text, sound & video. Together with the local population of the Koster Islands, we have worked with a series of filmic rituals. In them, transformative possibilities of moving towards an existence are explored, where our human imprints become part of the regenerative power of life. By changing our spoken and bodily language, a link is sought between us and an ecological self. To approach a coexistence beyond the limits of species, space and time. Together, we have left our heavy bodies aside to investigate the possibilities of going into animal shelter. To try to approach the bird’s perspective of freedom and ability to navigate, of crossing borders and deepened relationship with its landscapes and the living.
We have worked with sound from the bird life on the Koster Islands. Socialized with dead birds we found during our walks. Collected feathers and walked backwards over the cobblestone ridges in an attempt to erase the territorial trespasses we made against those who share habitat with. Tried to understand if we can return the world to itself. Nature does not follow the laws of nature. The laws of nature are man’s attempt to put words to simplified patterns outside oneself.
With this work, we have tried to get closer to the being of birds. Asking to move away from our ingrained images and patterned behaviors, through
them, to fly over our inherited boundaries and closed structures, towards a new way of being. By, for a moment to float, outside of our own
control, we try to calibrate our discernment and follow unexpected directions through those who carry different compasses than us.
In our conversations with birds, no one has described control, dominance, competition and scarcity as something desirable. With the bird’s perspective over time and space, people are described as listening, relational and free beings. Free to take responsibility, meaningrespond to our common reality. Free to give up control and give ourselves in to the world.
Photo: Marcus Gyllborg
In The Conference of the Birds exhibition at Österängens konsthall 2024, Gylleboverket showed their installation and video work made in Koster islands 2021-2024, Immovable meets irresistible – Re-enchantment of common grounds. In collaboration with Tide Säfve (sound) and participating in film rituals: Helena von Bothmer, George Karuna Hellgren, Rougine Pourhassani and Bisse Hultin.
The process in Koster islands
In June 2021 the project in Koster islands started out with a meeting and a walk looking at the islands with a bird perspective together with people from the community. Koster islands on the Swedish west coast are to a large extent nature reserve and the location of the Kosterhavet National Park, the only marine national park in Sweden. The purpose of the walk was to give the artists a chance to connect with local practitioners and learn more about the birds’ situation in Koster, historically, today and in the future. We started out at the permaculture farm and restaurant Kosters Trädgårdar and Kosters Sculpture garden with an introduction of the project and the artists. Ornithologists Jan Uddén from Bohusläns museum and the Koster inhabitants ornithologist Peter Lindberg, marine biologist Lars-Ove Loo and permaculturist Helena von Bothmer shared their knowledge of the bird life in the islands. Ulrika Jansson, artist, created the framework for the walk together with Bisse Hultin from Kosters Sculpture garden.
Photo: Ulrika Jansson
During an artist in residence period in August 2021 the work of the artist collective Gylleboverket started and continued to develop during several working periods on the islands in the coming years until 2024. Their work was made in close connection to the permaculture farm and public meeting place Kosters trädgårdar (Gardens) and the non-profit association Koster Sculpture garden. Kosters trädgårdar is a farm and restaurant based on permaculture, a way of farming that uses less land for human food production, leaving more space for wildlife.
Gylleboverket is both an artist group and a interdisciplinary plattform for contemporary arts, performance, film & permaculture and aims to facilitate diversity and complexity. They work with social sculpture, site specific installations, rituals, text, film and performances. Gylleboverket is run by the artists Etta Säfve and Jona Elfdahl, who’s also the core of the artist group together with different collaborations. Their artistic practice originates in deep ecology, experimentation on a quest for surrendering into an ecological self and what that might be, as well as from “hands in the soil” practical work and artistic explorations of societal questions of our time. Trying to keep a criticality towards one’s own, and society’s, inherited thought patterns and established norms by following the traces we leave ecologically as well as our projected ideas of life. Alongside Gylleboverket they run “Boat in the forest- harbor for radical nomads”, a permaculture farm where they experiment with regenerative farming and are trying to understand how we can build existential resilience in relation to oneself, each other, the more than humans and earth.
Koster island walk
Negotiating land use in between birds and humans, Koster Islands, Göteborg and Garsnäs, Sweden
Participants in the Sweden Nest Koster islands:
Gylleboverket: Etta Säfve & Jona Elfdahl (SE)
Performance, video & installation artists
Gylleboverket’s investigations take shape as ritual being, performance, text, sound & Gylleboverket is an artist group that works with site-specific installations, performance, sound, video and ritual investigations. They work with built-up worlds, often of natural materials, myths, rites and stage installations. They also run the platform Gylleboverket – a platform for contemporary art, film and permaculture, where they explore artistic strategies and permaculture as a tool to understand what it is to be human and work in the world with care for the earth, the more-than-human and each other.
www.gylleboverket.se/
Ulrika Jansson (SE)
Artist/Curator
Ulrika Jansson’s artistic practice navigates the confluence of place, human interaction, and ecology. She engages in interdisciplinary projects that bring global ecological issues into a local context processed through artistic methods. Her diverse works, showcased in multi-part audiovisual installations, blend sculpture, stop-motion film, and sound techniques. These pieces often incorporate handicraft techniques, plant materials and natural phenomena, enhancing engagement with the more-than-human world.
www.ulrikajansson.com
@ulrika.jansson_