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 Back To The Land 2.0 Reading List.

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

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

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

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

The skills we need (Elisava, Barcelona, 2m, 2017)
– the most important quality in a designer? curiosity
– a trick to get head? get out of the studio and into the world

Design for a Bioregion (AtelierLUMA, France, 2m, 2017)
– making as connecting – especially with people who are not like you
– making as connecting with the land
– few of the answers we need will be found in peoples’ heads

Commoning Workshop (Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien, 9m, 2018)
– why we need a new ‘story of place’
– connecting small actions for large-scale change

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

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”

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 connections?

From Biomedicine to Bioregion: The Geographies of a Care Economy
(UC Berkeley, California, Dean’s Lecture, 1h, 2016)
– why caring for place is a story that reconnects people, health, and context
– from Small to Big: signals of transformation
– going with the flow

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