Cosmos Daydreams

 

Next week I’ll travel through Europe by train leaving a trail of Cosmos Daydream seeds. This particular Cosmos Bipinnatus, a flowering plant in the daisy family Asteracea, grows to more than a metre in height and it has dreamy pink flowers with a yellow heart. It is best sown in May or June and it doesn’t need much care. They look wild and sophisticated at the same time.

I love that name, Cosmos Daydream, and I worked with the seeds in the past, once using them to grow the ground plan of my apartment in a farmer’s field when I couldn’t return home during Covid.

After arriving at Inwole/Projekthaus Potsdam for Tiny Spaces Deep Connections (a 2-year research initiative designed to develop a more sustainable model for artist residencies) and living in a tiny house creating new work, I will travel back, spreading more seeds.

 

The trail will lead through these places: Fontao - Monforte de Lemos - Leon - Valencia - Barcelona - Civitaveccia - Roma - Bologna - Rovereto - München - Berlin - Potsdam - Berlin - Karlsruhe - Paris - Toulouse - Narbonne - Barcelona.

 

If you’re on my route and would like to meet up, let me know! I’ll be handing out little jars of my travel companion (a sourdough starter) as well.

Notions of care

This is my sourdough starter. It has been moving around with me in the last year and a half and in less than 3 weeks we will go on a journey as the Bureau of Slow Endeavours from Galicia in Spain to Potsdam in Germany. A 6 day journey by train and boat as part of Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, a 2-year research initiative designed to develop a more sustainable model for artist residencies. A sourdough starter, masa madre —mother dough— in Spanish, is used to make bread but I am just as interested, maybe even more, in experiencing how working with —which means living with— an other-than-human organism opens up a thinking process about notions of care and how to relate to non-human entities. I have to admit I haven’t given it the best care possible in the last months, sometimes storing it in the fridge for longer periods of time or throwing out the so called discard—the part you don’t need when feeding your starter—instead of using it for something other than making bread. 

 

It is still not too warm in Galicia so I use wool from the sheep that are herded on the heath close to my house in the Netherlands to keep my starter warm and happy.

 

Can a community of bacteria and yeast be happy? And does my sourdough starter have a name (people asked me)? Which leads to the subject of anthropomorphism: the attribution of human traits, emotions, intentions or behaviours to non-human entities. More about that some other time. 

 

 

 

In search of connections for Tiny Spaces Deep Connections

The Bureau of Slow Endeavours will embark on a new journey in June. I have been invited by Tiny Spaces Deep Connections to travel by public transport (train/bus/boat, no flying) from the Bureau’s new headquarters in Fontao, Galicia (Spain) to Inwole in Potsdam (Germany). The residency offers a unique opportunity to research slow travel while creatively integrating the journey into the artistic process. At Inwole, an educational and cultural association focusing on political and cultural education, sustainability and solidarity-based economies, I will live and work in a tiny house/trailer at the Project House Potsdam-Babelsberg for three weeks, connecting and collaborating with the local community before travelling back slowly.

I will travel with a mobile version of the Bureau of Slow Endeavours that will have 3 components: 
1. travelling with a living culture: a sourdough starter (bacteria & yeast) that has to be fed and taken care of during the journey and can be shared with people I encounter (because it multiplies very fast) 
2. cosmos daydream seeds that will be dispersed along the route, creating a living trail of the journey & collecting new seeds while travelling 
3. collection of (natural) materials that can be used for drawing and will be used to both document the journey (during and after) and the on-site explorations but are also an integral part of the journey because they are found on the way (f.e.: plant material to turn into wild ink, liquids, pigments, grease, mud, anything that leaves a mark when put on paper). 
I will wear a business suit, aka three-piece-walking suit. In the last 10 years, I’ve been doing many slow projects using a suit in a non-conventional way as an anti-capitalist act. I call my suit my Soft Armour, it keeps me warm, safe, sound, it opens doors. It is my uniform, my costume, my house, I use it to collect stories in and it is as comfortable as any outfit I can think of, especially because I don’t mind when it gets dirty, torn, worn out, when the world leaves its traces. The suit I’ll be wearing is covered in hand embroidered questions people have been asking me during earlier projects and while travelling I’ll collect new ones and embroider them on the suit.

Workshops connected to the 3 components that can be organised during the travelling and/or on-site: working with sourdough/fermentation processes, guerilla gardening with seedbombs, using & making natural and alternative drawing materials, slow practises/walking art

I am looking for connections and exchanges on the road. People who can host me for a night (or 2 if you’d like me to give a proper presentation or workshop). This can be very low-key: you offer me a bed or sofa and I’ll share my sourdough culture and knowledge about using it with you (and friends or family if you’d like them to take part), embroider your question on my suit, leave some cosmos daydream seeds on your windowsill or in your garden, share my stories from the road. This can also be at a cultural, art or educational institution where I can do the same but also give a presentation or workshop. 

I am looking for places to stay and exchange:
* 1-7 June in: Northern Spain/Basque Country/Barcelona or a city like Madrid with a good connection to France (around June 1-2), France (around June 2-4), Northern Italy/Switzerland/Austria (around June 3-6), Southern Germany (June 6-7)
* 29/30 June: Paris
* 30 June/1 July: Barcelona
* First week of July: anywhere in Spain
But I am open to making detours if it can fit my planning

More info about me here
More info about Tiny Spaces Deep Connections here

You can write me at mwabesten@gmail.com or connect through facebook, instagram, whatsapp