BurSE at Schmiede

The Bureau of Slow Endeavours (BurSE) has existed in my mind for a long time and finally the moment has come to make it happen. Every year in September, around 250 artists, musicians, programmers, performers, writers and creative people from many other fields, get together for 10 days in a former salt refinery on a small island in the city of Hallein to get inspired, network, create, present, collaborate and exchange: Schmiede. This year's theme is Sloth, so slowness will be at the heart of the event. I am invited for a three week residency that will lead to a writing/book contribution.

The Bureau of Slow Endeavours (BurSE) is a new long-term artistic research project about Slow Ways of Being, focusing on collaboration, creation and education. It will bring a small army of scobys (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) to Schmiede, not only to produce kombucha with natural water from the surroundings but also as muses and inspiration source (a scoby is a master of slowness) for the community of Smiths, as the participants of Schmiede are called.

Apart from creating a physical presence of the Bureau, BurSE will work on artistic projects, interventions, presentations and workshops involving walking, deep listening, storytelling, interspecies collaboration, slow media.

On September 8, BurSE will travel relatively slow—not by the most cherished travel method, which is walking, but by car— from Amsterdam to Hallein to get everything ready for the arrival of the Smiths. In the meantime, the scobys are multiplying and producing kombucha in a forest in the Netherlands.