We are excited to announce Skaftfell’s participation in the international collaborative project “Gardening of Soul: In Five Chapters”, led by the Faculty of Art at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University and House of Arts in Ústi nad Labem, Czech Republic. Our project partners include four non-profit organisations working with community building art practices in the Czech Republic, and eight other art organizations from across the world.
The 3-year project is funded by the EEA Iceland Liechtenstein Norway Grants from 2022 to 2024.
“Gardening of Soul: In Five Chapters” explores and commissions public artworks that engage in community building and place making. The project is particularly interested in the interactive artistic processes bringing these artworks to life, which could be seen as forms of gardening – involving caretaking, listening, placing, growing, activating, maintaining. Outcomes will include two exhibitions at House of Arts, a series of artist residencies and art commissions, a conference and a publication.
Curator Adéla Machová and artist Jan Krtička visited us in October as representatives of the Jan Evangelista Purkyne University. Collectively we worked on Skaftfell’s contributions to the project’s first exhibition in House of Arts in December 2022, and on artist residencies and art commissions planned in the context of the project. We would like to thank Adéla and Jan for a very productive and enjoyable week and look forward to meeting them again soon in Ústi nad Labem. Jan Krtička will stay on at Skaftfell as artist in residence until mid-November, developing his research on a new sound based artwork with recordings from Iceland.
More about Gardening of Soul can be found on the project’s website (in process): www.gardeningofsoul.com and at https://archive.skaftfell.is/…/gardening-of-soul-in-five-chapters/
