These videos introduce the annual Back To The Land 2.0 summer school in Sweden that I run together with Konstfack (Cheryl Akner-Koler) and Annika Göran-Rodell. See also my 2022 Back To The Land 2.0 Reading List.

Nine ways to intervene in a food system
(Thirty minute video from 2014 – but still relevant. Starts at 3m)
– Mapping Local Resources
– Connecting Growers & Citizens
– New Co-operatives
– Participation of Young People
– Re-Use of Buildings and Spaces
– Seeds and Seed Banking
– Herbs, Foraging
– Connected Garden
– Adapt Other Practice

Social Food Forum, Matera, Italy (3m, 2019)
– 15 social food curators meet in Italy

The City and Its Bioregion (IAAC, Barcelona’s FabLab, 35m, 2016)
– why should an architect or urban planner even think about meatballs?
– a ‘smart city’ that does not think about food will soon be a dead city
– design ingredients for “Back To The Land 2.0”

Regenerative City DxCC Tongji University, Shanghai (25m, 2018)
– cities in a larger context
– health of place = health of people
– urban-rural reconnection

City-Rural Connections  (Abadir, Sicily, 3m, 2018)
– what steps could we take to reconnect city and rural?
– how might relational design enhance or multiply these connection

How to connect cities and nature  (Aarhus, 2m, 2018)
– look at a carrot in a restaurant
– do you know who grew it? and how?

Future Ways of Living (Milan Triennale, 65m, 2017)
– why we need a new story
– signals of re-connection (with the land, and with each other)
– bioregions as a living ‘frame’ for our work
– co-operation platforms as a way for diverse people to work together

Thinking Like A Forest: A Design Agenda for Bioregions (School of Visual Arts, New York, 50m, 2015)
– what does a “leave things better economy” mean in practice?
– how designers are contributing to this new economy, right now

Xskool Talk 1: The Metabolic Rift   (20m, 2014)
– the big picture: why we have a problem
– industrial food vs living systems vs financial systems
– metabolic rift as collective dis-association from living systems

Xskool Talk 2: Ecological Agriculture   (17m, 2014)
– thousands of experiments; new values; new geographies,
– focus on the local > bioregions, foodsheds, watersheds
– ecological agriculture: activities

Xskool Talk 3: Social Farming   (24m, 2014)
– food systems are social systems
– growing, distributing, preparing as collaboration
– connecting small actions, rooted in a place, with the bigger picture
– macro systems contain micro-activities

See also John Thackara Videos at YouTube