History: Svenja Keune, NGM Interview

Svenja Keune, NGM interview
Interview host: Shih Wei Chieh
2022.12.22
Vævestuens væveskole, Denmark, online

S: I'm super curious like, right now we are starting to plan the next summer camp, and I'm really curious how it will be because the first one was so carefully planned, but also everything was really new and we didn't really know what we were doing. So we developed the whole concept from scratch. And also the concept was very much shaped by the timeframe we had available. So, we had the first part in Newcastle was like, designing for insects and like, no one of us really knows in-depth how to actually do that. So we developed some content that we could teach and also open for discussion around what is actually how to design for other species. And then the second part was more about how to be with other living organisms in a more rural area in Denmark. And I think ideally this would have been the other way around. Like first slowing down or opening up our perception towards other organisms and then actually bringing in this new knowledge into workshops for designing for other living organisms. I think this would make much more sense. But it always depends also on when people are available, when our places are available. So we couldn't organize it the other way around. And I'm wondering how the next summer camp should be because it was also really intense. I think one learning that we had is that we are not able to have like a three-week intensive with two completely different programs with the same organizers because it was a bit too demanding, too stressful for the core team. But that was good learning.

W: Can you talk about how your Summer Camp started, and especially how you connect to these people, how you form this community?

S: So the intention for the overall summer camp is to learn more and also to create a community around multispecies design, because most of us actually feel like aliens in our own environments. All the people who work with multispecies design, or at least most of them, they don't have colleagues - I don't have colleagues with whom I can really in-depth discuss about how to design for other living organisms or topics also around the ethics, the aesthetics and the design methodology and so on. So a part of our intention was to form a community where more in-depth discussion can actually take place and then also to have a community to work with, because at least I think it's much more fun to work together with other people instead of being alone and doing my own thing. And especially also after the pandemic. And I also really wanted to share the facilities that my landlords have, the Scout camp and the beautiful environment with the nature park and the farm and everything. So I really wanted to take this opportunity to invite other people to come there and to work with me.

W: Can you share a little bit about the story with the landlord and how you started working on his land?

S: Two years ago, I was looking for a place where to move my research to, and the house on Wheels, that is a big part of my research. And then I was contacted by my landlords, Kiersten and Tom Upfeld because they are always very curious to let other people also join them and to learn from others and to provide what they have built with others. So they have a sawmill where they can cut wood from the forest that's nearby. And Kiersten runs a weaving school where lots of mostly women from the neighborhood, but even also from Copenhagen, are coming to learn more about hand weaving.They also have a gardening community and a pig community, so they work a lot with different communities and share the potential that they and their land like have. And they were both teachers. Tom studied agricultural science and then was a teacher in the local free school. And he's basically a farmer who is very passionate about sheep, and they still have a couple of sheep. Kiersten also was a teacher and then founded the weaving school, which now transforms into a weaving community. So she will soon stop teaching, but still make the place available for people who want to learn and do hand weaving. And it's like a really busy place. It's incredible how many people come there to weave, even from Copenhagen.
And also Tom has been a felting maker, so he's very good in felting. There's just so much knowledge about agriculture, textiles, the local environment. It's perfect. He's quite into traditional farming. One can have really intense and interesting discussions with him. He's not really into permaculture. What he's always talking about is, like, quality and quantity and that of course, quality is important, but since we are like 8 billion people on this planet already, it's also very important that we have the quantity. And then he's really curious about how to actually provide the quantity, and he doubts that this quantity can be provided by ecological and non petrochemical farming. Since I don't have a background, I really want to believe that it's possible that we don't have to use chemicals and pesticides and so on.

W: Can you tell us more about the beginning of the Summer camp?

S: The summer camp emerged from me wanting to have a summer camp in Velza, at my landlord's place, but I didn't want to do it alone, so then I got to know Asya who wanted to do a summer camp together with Dilan and Loudin at Newcastle University in the UK. Since both topics and both timeframes were exactly like, matching up, we decided to join both summer camps into the I.N.S.E.C.T. Summer Camp. So that's like how these two programs kind of merged into one. And then the first one was specifically about making a facade twin for the Om, an experimental building that belongs to the HBBE at Newcastle University. And we wanted to 3D printing with clay and experiment with mycelium and textiles to make a facade installation that would somehow interact with the local insects. So for that - ten days of workshops, we had an open call for applications and then selected nine participants. And we created a rough program for the ten days that we would have. Some of the participants had a lot of experience with mycelium, some of them had a lot of experience with clay, 3D printing. So we had all the expertise available that we would need to finish this installation. And it was also really intense. It was really intense ten days because we had so much to develop. Like we had to design the installation and then we also had to produce it, we had to 3D print, we had to fire and inoculate the pieces, pre-grow them in the bio lab and then bring them outside. So it was quite intense.

And in the second workshop, where it was more about how to be with, how to connect with other living organisms, for that we traveled to Velzu, to my landlords’ place, to the Scout camp, and there we actually had quite an intense preparation beforehand because the overall theme, or the overall approach was also co-creation. So it was not one person who created or organized everything, but we had an open call for registering, so everyone who wanted to join us could register and then join our Discord channel and also the regular zoom meetings. And everyone could work and collaborate in ways that would suit them best. So we had lots of young students who had more time available beforehand and they actually organized most of the program beforehand and were really active in the organization and planning of everything. So it was really important to actually have students with time available for the organization. I think that was the main difference also. The core team - that was Lavan Kilbat, Asya, Ilkun, Dilan, Urska and me. We prepared lots of teaching material for the first part, but for the second part, everything was co-created by whoever wanted to join. The camp was not really part of universities, but Dylan and Asya are PhD students and I'm a postdoctoral researcher, so of course we are linked to academia. But I think part one was more like a usual, more or less academic or ‘proper’ workshop. Whereas part two, many participants really pointed out that they have never witnessed or never participated in an academic workshop like this because it was not really academic, it was really about having a good time while also having really meaningful discussions around multi-species design. So in that way it was quite a special framework. And for part one, we received funding from Newcastle University and some funds in that regard, we have a list of that. And for part two, we received funding from the Danish Arts Foundation. But actually most of our time, like the organizer's time, actually all of it was kind of self-funded. And one reflection that we have now after this really intense time is that this is not really sustainable. Because we had to put in so much time and so much effort that we really - I wouldn't say we burned out - but giving so much and of course we got so much back, but there is a lack of energy that we can feel afterwards. So in the future we will adjust some structural issues. Basically it's all energy, and for some people money energy is more important. For me, what I would need is more help from others, like more energy from outside and energy can have really different forms.

W: Are you planning to or do you ever consider to keep more openness in your camp to other communities besides academic network? Is there any form of collaboration between camp context and other industries?

S: As we are now starting to plan the next summer camp we are also asking ourselves these questions because part one was very specifically narrowed down and like we deliberately spent a lot of time to actually choose the right participants, and that was actually very important for what we wanted to do. We couldn't have accomplished our goal for the workshop with kind of random people, so they really had to bring the knowledge in. And for part two, there was no selection whatsoever, and also the price for the camp was really low so that in theory everyone who wanted could have participated, because we didn't sort anyone out. People could just register and pay and come and they were in. So I think that of course we did our best to invite different people within our network but we also posted it on social media and on different websites. But of course it could even be more - I think the openness here relates to who actually gets to know about this camp and then decides to come. And then also who can afford to travel and who can afford the time. But that was also quite flexible because people could decide to come just for a day, or two, or three. So it was really very open. And I think it was a very good approach and yet I think it's also important to make sure that the depth of the discussions and what we are doing is actually secured and also increases over the camp. So actually, I would do it in a way as also in the E-textile summer camp that the people who already participated kind of already have the spot or the community.

In normal workshops you always have different people participating. At least if you organize a workshop then you get to know one another during the workshop and then you separate and then when there is another workshop then usually it's like different people. And what I really like now with this I.N.S.E.C.T. community is that we already have so much experience with how to work with one another, and who is who. So, next time we meet, we already have this knowledge, so there is automatically more depth or more familiarity within the community. And this is what I would like to work with. So, of course, like, there will be different people always coming in and going out. But I think it's important that there's like a core group who shares the vision or the purpose and holds it together, so that this is there.

What I reflected on in the second part - we spent a lot of time and effort in actually getting to know one another, so into human connections, and I think that the multi-species connections, they were sometimes a little in the background because we had to learn how to live with one another just with humans. So I really hope that in the next summer camp we can bring more emphasis into the multi-species cohabitation and not only like human cohabitation, but it's of course also part of the game in a way.

W: Will the next Summer Camp be held at the same spot?

S: I think so. In the beginning I thought it could also be another place. I think it would be really interesting to also do it in another place. But actually I think there is quite a high value in doing it in Velzer again, because now many people know what to expect, they know the place and we can again build on the knowledge that we gained. So everything that we can do to jump a little bit ahead of time in getting to know the environment, getting to know the people, getting to know how to be with one another. If we can jump these steps a little faster to then go, ‘okay, how do we relate to our environment like all the other living beings? Who else is living here? How can we connect to them? What do we want to learn about them?’ And then also we had the difficulty that actually no entomologist and no biologist joined the Summer Camp. And we really have to learn why and also how to attract those people, how to bring them in, because we really want to learn from them.

W: I was going to ask you, have you considered combining the I.N.S.E.C.T context with farming or to grow land together so you always go back to the same land?

S: Yeah, that's actually an idea that I really would like to attract people because my landlords have a lot of land and I also have quite a huge garden and I'm living with my research experiments already. So it would also be really interesting if there would be works from others like who maybe don't have a garden or the space to produce something big and then leave it somewhere for some seasons or years. So this could definitely be something also in a way to combine part one and part two more. But I think this is also really tricky because in part one, for example, we were always working with our computers and really busy with just mental work. And part two was more focused on the body and actually really leaving behind all technology. So I'm not sure if it is actually possible to combine both parts or if they should be somehow separate. So this is something we need to discuss for the next workshop.

S: Do you have a suggestion or vision, or how do you envision the second iteration of the I.N.S.E.C.T. Summer Camp next year? What would you do differently?

W: I think I.N.S.E.C.T. is really interesting, but maybe it's a bit too specific. For example, if you're talking about insect, you are also talking about nature as well. So everything about nature can be discussed. For example, farming too. And I think maybe next time you can include the farming people too. I know a project called ROMI. They are from the Green Fabulous in Barcelona. They do a lot of these robots and the founder is really interesting. He's a super nice guy and he has many good ideas for the fabrication tools for farming. So, I'm more interested in that but I'm also very interested in insects, but I don't want to work with only insects since it is not my territory. But with farming, or plants, I would love to spend more energy for that. And then these two fields connect totally, maybe to provide more routes for participants.You have so much to do with that, because you are basically dealing with multi spaces living environment and living architecture. I think it's a super big topic.

S: The question is do we actually see the word insect, or like the term I.N.S.E.C.T. Summer Camp is not only about insects, but we just chose the title because it has a special interest in insects, but it's not exclusive only to insects. And that's why we wrote a dot in between each capital letter. And we try to communicate that it's not only about insects, because that's really very specific. But maybe we just have to do better that the term insect includes other things, because it doesn't make so much sense to now change the name into something else. The E-textile Summer Camp also turned into a bio-textile Summer camp a little bit, but then you wouldn't change the name of it because of that.