About
It all began as an art-in-residence project at Buurtwerkplaats Noorderhof, a social-design and art workshop in Amsterdam. It grew out of disapointment with the possibilities that we saw for ourselves after graduating from art school. We felt discouraged by the fragmentation between work, leisure and studio time. We had attended the significant Documenta 15, and were inspired by the way collectives were dealing with the complex questions of our era, specifically the idea of building commons-based economies to support collectives and artists.
During this residency we set up the foundations for an alternative art practice which finds security in a network of exchanges with human and non-human animals and plants. We sought to bring different beings, objects, resources and actions into creative relationship with each other to form a harmonious permacultural system.
Using bamboo, we built a small wagon to become our mobile house and studio and our small family of three (Tom & Sterre, humans, and Hennes, dog) was extended with the arrival of three dairy sheep: Bob, Bonma and Mamoosh.
As a culmination of our residency, we organised Sheep Fest, a one-day festival with workshops, a talk, live music and a shared dinner that included cooking with sheep milk. We also launched the first edition of our slow moving manual, a collaborative periodical publication.
On the 28th of September, with Bob the ram pulling the wagon, we walked out through the gates of Buurtwerkplaats Noorderhof as our adventure began. We’ve since been living an itinerant lifestyle, moving from farm to farm through the rural landscape of the Netherlands, researching an alternative economy of art objects and actions through practicing exchanges of gifts and mutual care with the strangers we meet and stay with. The materials used for these exchanges come from our direct environment: wool, milk, foraged plants, wood, potatoes, cardboard etc., as well as a basic set of tools which we carry with us: camera, pens, paper.