myvillages

Artists’ initiative Myvillages focuses on the countryside as a place for and of cultural production. In TENT, Myvillages made their first presentation for a Dutch public, with an exhibition, a programme of events and the International Village Shop.

Read out

In 2003, Kathrin Böhm (GER/UK), Wapke Feenstra (NL) and Antje Schiffers (GER) formed the collective Myvillages to explore the village as a source of knowledge in contemporary art. All three artists grew up in small farming villages, and use this position to bring the countryside as a place of cultural production into the discussion of contemporary art.

Thus, their International Village Shop, where village products are tasted and sold, has already appeared on the Lüneburger Heide and in Tate Britain. For the festival Über Lebenskunst in Berlin, they worked for a year on Vorratskammer (Larder), in which a larder was stocked with produce from farmers, breweries and producers from the immediate area. Visitors to the Haus der Kulturen der Welt were invited to consume the end result of preserved food, freshly harvested hydro lettuce, specially brewed drinks and village meat.

In the International Village Shop at TENT visitors could buy village produce from Myvillages’ European network, supplemented with food products from local farmers. Various films and videos depicted rural life and the origins of ’Village Food’.