28th June 2022 10-12pm 
Partipants: Taey, Youngsook, Laura, Mami

* access; check on each other, try to eat healthy food, make sure toilet access are nearby for everyone, maybe taking a nap, horizontal actions pls (not only vertical actions). we can walk to the grass to hang out. 

* Caretaking & spaceholder (timekeeping, weather check, remind us hydrate, eat, sleep, nap etc, track of people's schedule, make sure we have point of meeting, hold space to check in)
6th - Youngsook arriving around 6pm, Taey arriving around 9pm 
7th - Taey (Mami arriving at evening) 
8th - Laura 12:30-1:15 (Mami's talk in main hall)
9th - Youngsook 6:30-9:30pm event (Jang can come later) 
10th - Mami 6:30-9:30pm event (Jang can help take photo)

Condition: Mami also staying in Queerhouse. Laura has to park somewhere else. We can all cook in the queerhouse. Washing machine, fully equipped available. Hotwater shower. * please pour fresh water into the pond. 

Mami: sound system, Cian's voice (bluetooth) / Ayesha's voice (there is sound piece already) Mami will take care of pond.

24th 9:35-
Partipants: Helen, Taey, Youngsook, Laura, Ayesha 

Discussing and shared feelings around Anti-semitisism and censorships that brought up (https://documenta-fifteen.de/en/news/ruangrupa-on-dismantling-peoples-justice-by-taring-padi/?fbclid=IwAR2sKJLUo6l_rjQ7t7NgPNWcDMTI9pbWe-V4YFJ86_6UxBvbnU5FWjibTNY)

Taey: This is aweful but repeated, intrupted news (the image has been already circulated in biennales previously) stops us to flow from our focus, this is familiar pattern 
Helen: appreciate ruangrupa's effort to put palestine artists in the show,sucking energy from people
Laura: hard to locate my feelings on this. white supremarcies are real in germany towards so many different identities and this censorship is such a futile way of dealing with its history, felt deflated.  
Youngsook: not just palestinian freedom and resistance, but also 
Ayesha: stand with taring padi, furious at documenta, germany's wider policing


Next Meetings - Friday 24th 9.30-10.30 (for finishing the paragrpah toegther and writing a bit more into collective actions) 
Tuesday 28th 10-12 meeting 

DBWG Biogs https://docs.google.com/document/d/13pcK-d3WddTrUO-IXfYttVmovMjcQKneaQUzz1Lj3qA/edit?usp=drivesdk

Decolonising Botany Group Meetings - agenda and notes

STAGE 1 Values for the collective performance at Mami's Garden

- Bungkalan (workers, farmers, land, cultivation, ownership) 
- Listening
- More than human
- Livingness/thickening
- Un-settling
- holding 
- dignity 
- in-between 

Blurb (Documenta website) 
Things to do: contact documenta for PR, PR from our personal platform), Images, Biogs
Nha San Collective page: https://documenta-fifteen.de/en/lumbung-members-artists/nha-san-collective/ 

TITLE: (Options) - "The Earth is for Those that Dig It; Activism is Not a Crime"  "Refusing Oasis" 
DATE: 9-10.7.2022 6:30-9:30pm
LOCATION: WH22
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH
INVITED GUEST: Decolonising Botany Working Group (Ayesha Keshani, Cian Dayrit, Helen Pritchard, Laura Burns, Taey Iohe, Tuan Mami, Youngsook Choi) 
DETAIL: Gathering, practicing, 
IMAGE: 
    
DESCRIPTION: 
Decolonising Botany Working Group holds a space at Mami's Immigrating Garden in WH22, a refusing oasis. Gentle paced durational performance will navigate different experiences of solidarity for anti colonial struggle, collective unsettlings and multivocal ceremonies. Feeling through interdependencies for enduring joy, grief, refusal and anger - perhaps speculative, perhaps unbearable, perhaps love. Opening up discussions in unlikely spaces, spreading the wild fire of deeper understanding through the evening of collective place-making and time-holding. Visitors are invited to enter the garden to work together towards havens, somatic solidarities, and crossings for ongoing journeys together under and above ground. For the defence of bungkalan and honouring the hands that touch the soil: the earth is for those that dig it, activism is not a crime. 

FOR SOCIAL PR: 
Decolonising Botany Working Group holds a space at Mami's Immigrating Garden in WH22, A Refusing Oasis. Gentle paced durational performance will navigate different experiences of solidarity for anti colonial struggle, collective unsettlings and multivocal ceremonies. Feeling through interdependencies for enduring joy, grief, refusal and anger - perhaps speculative, perhaps unbearable, perhaps love. Opening up discussions in unlikely spaces, spreading the wild fire of deeper understanding through the evening of collective place-making and time-holding. Visitors are invited to enter the garden to work together towards havens, somatic solidarities, and crossings for ongoing journeys together under and above ground. For the defence of bungkalan and honouring the hands that touch the soil: the earth is for those that dig it, activism is not a crime. 

Unedited:

Decolonising Botany Working Group holds a space at Mami's Migrating Garden in WH22 a refusing oasis. Gentle paced durational performance will navigate different experiences of solidarity for anti colonial struggle, collective unsettlings, multivocal ceremonies, feeling through interdependencies for enduring joy, grief, refusal and anger perhaps speculative, perhaps unbearable, perhaps love. Opening up discussions in unlikely spaces, spreading the wild fire of deeper understanding. Through the evening forming sensory collectives and intentional collective place-making within the time together. Visitors are invited to enter the garden with us to work together towards havens, somatic solidarities, and crossings for ongoing journeys together under and above ground. For the defence of bungkalan, the earth is for those that dig it, activism is not a crime.

Decolonising Botany Working Group is 




spread wild fire! 

not just palestinian freedom and resistance (important in itself of course), but also the ability for nonwestern communities to find voice against oppression, colonialism, etc etc, in western art contexts. i find it unbelievable that so many truly brilliant collectives and individuals are centred at kassel right now, and at what should be a moment of gentle, powerful exchange and a shift forward, it is being squashed once again by this matrix of white supremacy / western bureaucracy / hierarchies, hiding behind smokescreens. I am furious.

how to use the space to turn the space over to others when the space might be needed - fearing of the softness. a smoke screen of more-than-human, comfortable non politics... the description of short provoking and cheerful.. a political infantalisation .. 

always angry - could utilise the space to make it a critical space.. current direction no space for . what would it mean to make time to make a discussion space on the politics - how do we make the shift different when the voice is not heard even though so many asian artists in documenta .. 

artnet.. article how dialogue is being blocked and not allowing any space to exchange... to hold a space for dialogue .. 

not seeing durational performance is not discussion.. durational performance can be a discussion.. also still important to maintain.. why do we need oasis in the firts place because ther eis a desert surrounding.. a balance between the lacking and the desert and at same time how to create mami's garden at the same time of pay and thirst in the same time.. i dont think we should shift direction from one to another.. 

orientation the impact of the way the focus is being taken .. is exactly that its taking away from whats not oriented towarsdd that political history.. i dont want to orient to that and give it more space.. but of course its related because its the undermining of every anti colonial struggle its how its connected to everything here .. so how cna we make our offerings political and not be palatable.. not shying away.. not about making people feel good .. but how can we still be oriented towards what mami's garden is oriented towards which is haven and an unsettling.. 

methdology itself.. decolonising itself is the core practice .. how we deliver the message.. formal discussion is a very institutional way and can only make for those equipped with language .. performance can bring this conversation gently and soflty and close within the garden 

Cian - the loaded site of documenta, .. home, free, but a long legal battle.. not just for us but the farmers the agrian reform.. the installtion of the agrain reform beneficeries.. so watching out for this as its the main premis of everythign we have been fighting for to continue on the struggle.. its not new.. individual networks and circles of networks in amongst the artists, media peopel, researchers, everyone has been gathering support from the fields... a totally different articulation of solidatiry work of refusal and resistance of rights within land.. a way to look at things... 

cian - a loaded context - planning to write something being their my experience supports my responsibility that I and we carry in spreading this story.. all the way up to now.. we all believe in what we are doing.. and its what we need to find ways to form  - ive gone to different bunklan events before and had its fair share of rough entanglements with forces and authorities .. its part of it.. i mean its not exactly a refusal if there is nothing to refuse.. although we are winning more o

Movement & Actions!

List any scenes of actions here that you imagine could happen in the space... 
Beginning (Create the space, connect to each other) 

- 6:30-6:40 Greeting, a way of wellcoming people 

- soaking foot in soil (we are planted as non-human, integrated as nature), coming out for bare foot walking

- ocean drum (body of water, passing the drum to one place to another)! or any acoustic instrument.. special sound... korean shaman bell.. 

- Chinease whisper (sentense, or few words, political simple message)

- as we pass ocean drum and whisper next person's ear, this activates indivisual series of action.

Middle (action could be linear or simultaneous; moments of migration between each station, taking something, exchanging and returning)
- Helen making a beetroot remediation booch (if you want to make this you can peel beetroots (perhaps you can peel with others, whilst discussing what it might mean to consider queering the soil, queer toxic love, and decolonial bioremidation)and soak in water for 24 hours and keep adding, then perhaps people can take a cup in their hands , or literally cup their hands to pour into the earth,  on the ground of the garden and it will start the process to remediate some of the heavy metals in urban soil, all urban soils in areas where there have been cars or industry have heavy metals, which effect the hands that work the soil, it is impossible to fully remediate but some different tenderness to soil can beging to remove the heavy metal, other approaches include planting sunflowers), putting notes into people's pockets.
- Youngsook: hang muslin cloth to be soaked up slowly by beetroot water, threading between actions, 향, 드럼 
- laura: wash people's feet in the pond, can be silent action, grief and resiliance, healing place, water this into the plant (imaginative possibility, connect to the land and sky), asking people to hold a question while they draw on the water; then reading the reflection of water as divination
- taey: mortar and pestle, grinding Cải Tuyết and eat them (Bread, need to get them on saturday), writing and staining on the skin (feet? hand?) 
- Mami: drinking intervention (cocktail?), experience of the drink (liquor, cocktail, in the small corner, 5-10 ppl, chitchat), first sip one plant, second sip another plant (overall coreographer, stage manage, take care of schedule)

water as a thread - closing and connecting to soil 

Ending
- Integrate with Cian's note
- set candles and jars (LB)
- Smoke to invite the ancestral energy (n/a)
- Making one sculptural body, by one joining to other

- Honouring Helen's dream, name one tree (lime tree) as Ruth wilson gilmore, giving a note into the pockets



- Making as warm living room space, how do we make the generous, verbally and non-verbally, hospitality to the audience in the garden

---- 

- all lie down on the ground, breathing and meditation, attention to the land that has been transformed in the garden 

- pestle and mortar, griding peppers, seeds, plants (or empty) signalling the connection between actions

- in each corner, there is story of; 1) immigration, 2) land cultivation, 3) collective healing journey, 4) learning new languages -> each teller reads the story -> move to the next story station 

- when tellers says, 'that's how we come', then people responses, 'so we are'. (too christian, peganic, religious action, YC resists towards to it)


- could bring lots of empty jars and can light candles as it gets dark...  

- making a beetroot drink as something to tend to the heavy metals in the soil and the fertiliser for the soil both in the beds and to put energies into the shared soil , in a few places in the garden beetroots to be peeled and placed into water.. in some other places the beetroot water... peeling beetroots and soaking in water and then a few small e-waste speaker and low powered synthesiser which people can use to listen to the soil chirpings.. low sound involves listening and tending to the energies joy and harms/damages from the ground and plants and people in the space and their interdependencies , 

as a meeting point to discuss soil metal queer remediations..simply said peeling beetroot with a few people  people soaking it perhaps also making a remediation booch.. pouring it into the ground as a gift for mamis garden

- we have a small stack of stools, also we have some very soft pillows and blankets .. and we give them to people to sit on in differnet spaces or next to different plants or beds.. give them the stool or give them the stool in the space they are standing.

- someone has three pillows or a small rug and invites 2-3 people to sit with them on the rug, or maybe someone is already sitting on the rug and waits to see if someone sits with them, on the rug is a juicy drink, maybe something citrus but very refreshing and they pout them a small glass of the juice and then take the peppery leaf and hand it to the person who has joined them on the rug, and then invites them to eat the leaft and after they eat the leaf asks them a question.. the question is something friendly and kind.. yet unsettling opening something..... but is nothing more or less than the question itself (i.e not a metaphor) ... then after they are given a small cup of water and asked to water the plants ... drink 2/3rd and water the rest.. the thirst.. nettle teas .. 

- we light the fire and have people gather around it 
- someone taking hot water and cups around and welcoming people with tea you and the guest come up with a noting act .. when they have tea they can offer their hair to the plant.. the giveaway.. the part of yourself that you give away freely.. service... which is always in relaiton to a prayer of invocation.. a giveaway to balance it.. 

- something which activates to speak, parts which move to feel and connect, listening.. in the more-than-human maybe not using a language is very needed.. how gardens can often feel like churches.. people can enter and feel quiet and i really liked that that wasn't the garden there was a lot of different textrues of sound and talking.. 


- making scented smoke / burning something with it
- digging the soil to exccavate something hidden/buried
- hanging a piece of fabric to be dyed/absorbed by plant substance very slowly
- lying down with hairs spread on the ground/cutting hair as an offering


- taey is picking tiny pieces of their favourite plant and offering for others to taste 
- everyone at a certain time is making a sound to match the frequency of a plant they have decided to sound to. 
- guided meditation to root down through the layers of soil all the way to the centre of the earth (where all surface earth-points meet) and back up again
- we are wearing "smart clothes" ready to take Helen to their appointment with R.W.G
- plant massage - coming to a station and being guided (eyes closed) on a sensory walk of that area - touched (consensual :) ) by plants /sound 
- feet washing with water from the pond 
- the pond is "sister death" the portal to the underground, the place where grief/gratitude is held, on the way to the altar
- each station there is an exchange of something material (or imaginative) passing from one hand to another - as a gathering on the way to altar 

- can i send a hatful of sentences, quotes, fragments and phrases, maybe where someone's sitting on a mat with the tea. and any visitors are invited to sit, take a sentence, read it quietly out loud, and asked to carry it with them as an intention. It needs someone who can print / cut out sentences from 

i can imagine helen sitting in corner holding the book you mentioned of Ruth and keep making small notes and giving it into peoples pockets.. (date, time and meeting place)

going in with the grief and coming out with the gratitude... reflecting the sky the darkness that space can be held for the gratitude and greiveing and holds the oldest plant and contunously dies and return every year after year.. and all from the body of water.. meeting..  .. whippng the water relfecting the image of barbwire and the insutrial .. acts of unsetling 


STAGE 2 Write a paragaph, either score, script, quote, or manifestation
- Livingness: "There’s always livingness thickening possibility even when suffering the sharp edges of disappointment and defeat" from Ruthie wilson gilmore HP


- Un-settling: ... muddying/refusing the traceability of ownership/authorship (of land etc) as well as orienting away from the affects/desires produced by capitalism around that ownership. Unsettling as a love wobble to altar (sanctify) being a more-than-one LB



STAGE 3 Delegate decision makers 
- narrative
- movement & choreography
- audience engagement
- beginning and ending
- friendship, network

Next meeting, Tuesday, 28th June 10-12pm GMT

Meeting on 21st June 10-12AM GMT 
Taey, Youngsook, Laura, Ayesha, Helen 


WH22 - 4 collectives are involved, one of them organise and late night events including dancing. ElWatcha in a different venue set up the karaoke.   

Travel & Logistics
Youngsook: arriving 6pm-ish on 6th July, leaving 2pm-ish from Kassel (Queer House)
Taey: arriving 9pm-ish 6th July, leaving 2pm-ish from Kassel (Queer House) 
Helen: arriving 7th morning (can stay in Johanna apartment for 7-10th), Gillian also coming, 20th aug Helen
Ayesha, Cian:remotely arriving <3
Laura: 
Mami:

Questions: beddings for queer house? 
Is there bedding/towels? 
there is bedding there or you can bring the cover or we can wash it -

Youngsook - thinking of the word holding ... contast in the world hold, holding in the context of authority, locking up detainment, hold in a community context, supporting, the spectrum of meaning of hold/holding.. been through a number of unpleasant contexts, the racist graffiti, the diversity in the conversation around the different artist posed as a threat.. dont want to waste energy on a negative value .. put energy inward investment and shifted my thread to holding and having this in my mind as a spectrum from negative to positive - carrying each other how it can be manifested through a series of rituals in the garden..... 

Meeting Mami's colleagues in the garden and the people from queer haus and other friends - seeing the queer haus 
there is also a meeting space now with queerhaus right infront of the haus, 

re the seeds Mami is sending his spiritual protector :)))
for the future, to send, to protect the future and continue to grow
the resource of the garden is not that much so better to share the future share the hope rather than share the material now 
fish in the pond ! 
the artist is absence only the gardnener 
trasnformation if complete 
Mami is leaving tomorrow and coming back on the 8th 
Mami might fly 30th July .. and will drop by - Ayesha might there around the 28th 
so nice to see old friends from 15 years 
organic fertilizer - from vietnam can even drink it! 

Laura word - one of the really powerful moments when someone asked us where does this go -- and we'd been there for 2 hours and we didn't know and we asked someone else where somethign was and they had only been there for 2 hours -- blurry non hierachical shared cohabitation so it wasn't obvious who had been ther elongest who had claim to it and thats really unusual - normally you know in a community whose lived there whose just turned up, and i was thinking it was profound.. unsettling the settler.. wobble -- similar to what youngsook you were saying about two sides of holding.. staying in the van overnight next to the bar and every night noticing the shift of the garden, to the one alone in the van next to the bar of drunk german men, every day having experiences.. sleeping in the van .. how quickly situations can become unsetlling.. there have been many of those different incidients in this time in different ways so how to live into the benevolen unsettling that creates more space.. generative .. rather than the unsettling that creates less - also mistaking the spelling of alter for altar .. thats been with me - the subtle ways that we can alter the presences... 

youngsook - love shaping the dialogue things comes to us actively (rather than thinking actively) - natrual coming towards us.. rather than making this move forward .. there must be something why this dream happened.. when sleeping.. why you missplet alter/altar.. really beautoful .. livingness and unsettling and alter must be something to hold onto..and although the things are abstract.. i can some how vivid the thickening slow creation of the environments, occuptaiotn of the space through the acts of unsetttling that is generative there is a good connection between us .. 

Laura.. also in relation to cian .. wow the threat to power of collective ownership that is met with such force is deeply unsettling.. 
y - the threat caused by the institusion, all beautiful ideas, collective farming, collecitiove table, beautifukl garden that these are all threats.. how to pull myself to the holding.. in a way of holding the whole system in the garden. thickening a strong direction to connect too... how we can thicken that moment and space on those two evenings... 
Ayesha.. cian gave the word as dignity .. less abstract .. anchors.. weighty anchor and maybe everything else can be more abstract and moving next to it.. hold also the hold of the ship .. histories of slavery, histories of movement of plants.. reading about grasping, taking and owning - holding is the open palm gesture (showing) - 
holding can become the consequence of grasping.. 
different acts, prompts, sonic elements, activate as a way of coming together and thickening the space and time..... 
last week trying to think of gestures that were holding a continuous frequency ... duration its a long time.. how do we move through that time... 
Taey brought up the idea of a call and response chanting that can hold a frequency .. to slip in and out of.. 
the grinding the pestle and morter.. thickenings... and the difference between linear sequential actions of multiple simultaneous spatial happenings... 
gestures 
thickening .. stirring a soup - hot liquids little erruption of bubbles.. if thats a way to think aout that duration of time.. small little bursts that happen along the thickening .. 
continuous stirring gesture .. baseline gesture.. performance delivery and there is a popping gesture happenig but the popping gesture can be something that has a balance between cyclical improvisation and something pre-defind.. 
pligramage different stations along the way 
imagine the meeting of the temporal journey and sequentiual happening
i picture myself where the pond is and someone else standing somewhere else .. 
this is more of a feeling of what comes up.. something about 
if im there at the pond.. there is somethign about that place of the quality of still water , the wuality of the water plants that have been growing.. if you visit there you are coming to the intention thats emerging from the qualities of that place that is askign you that is adding to the culmination of your alter.. as bodies if we can hold specific stations.. anchors.. ushering.. the gesture like channeling .. if we are by the chilli plant our responsibility to channel the human visiotrs and chillis so they can go onwards on their onwards journey having been touched by that encounter.. somehow culmnating in the alter.. 
ayesha - contrubuting the upkeep and gardening you do it in a very physical way and you water ... another kind of gardening that is owed to the garden.. that we can bring so that its nuturing a different quality in the other kind of gardening that is maintaining the chill plant ...thickening for the garden.. thats not just about people visiting, weaving a layer in.. from these key words and everyone writing a paragraph.. how to bring it to the garden .. would it be more improvisational... specific texts and scripts.. thats what make time.. 
Bankalan TAey reading key words... these are really lovely set of words and representing who we are in some ways happening very present and has a movement in it .. and I trust that once we meet we hold the 6.30-9.30 7th and 8th practice and rehersal and then 9th and 10th publicly open.. more like we do our shit anyway and 9th and 10th people can join 7th and 8th we are doing it .. people making each station .. taking a journey from outside of garden to the inside of garden .. listening action and coming to the garden.. or form as a circle and all the happenig is in the circle and is more of a meditation than actioning.. or combine them too.. we talk about lots of interesting decision.. so why we came to say lets delegate to make decisions... so someone might say this is it.. 
shifting to a more structural shifting.. 
maybe just a momment before that.. 
different spaces, different points of a journey and main intention and same page with the intention.. then can more spefically create an offering.. maybe that comes after the or before the delegating so we have something mroe tangible.. 
i can imagine helen sitting in corner holding the book you mentioned of ruthie and keep making small notes and giving it into peoples pockets.. how a series of very simple acts becomes something.. how those become something.. a thickening .. how we want to activate them together.. a list of acts.. two days.. 
Ayesha - im stressed to hell! tyring to finish chapter submission .. back next week happy to do whatever is needed.. but next week happy to do .. 
    
Meeting on 14th June 10-12AM BST 
Taey, Laura, Ayesha, Helen, Youngsook

Taey: reflections on last meeting: Cian's contribution pre-police raid, and now the aftermath of that 

Ayesha: Echoes between Malaysia and Phillippines; monoculture, plantation and land politics control over food sovereignty; Indigenous blockades and NGO support (greenpeace etc.) in 80s in Sarawak. Sophie Chao "In the Shadow of the Palms"

Helen: the impact of gathering collective farming can be such a threat. plants as comrades. what about the "unsealing" of the soil in Mami's garden in some way, the act of collective digging

Laura: script or participatory action, imagine Cải Tuyết plant merge into the stories, collective imagination practice / hi(stories) and dialogue 

Taey: repetitions, stories move, passed one to the other, meditative, chanting, echoing the liverpool biennial performance, participation - blowing the wind into the plant, giving energy to the shrine. Time shift from day to night - spills into gathering around fire. How many people will come? How to make something intimate. Ask that it is a space that they are willing to succumb to 

Laura: 

Ayesha: Balance the weight of the stories, perhaps Vietnamese garden and Bungkalan movement 

Taey: Travelling focus with accumulation of stories lead to offering <3
Laura: How collective gardening can be threads? 
Ayesha: oil palm collective farming, fragmented, plantation politics, constantly moving, can send out prompts, gentle statements, 

Taey: instead of introductions on zoom, we can physically take the hands and bring people in, physical shift

Laura - how to be a host from the place of a guest, not misplacing / mispositioning myself. What to share. Queerness, how to meet in different ways, impactfulness of making queer family that is really family, taking on roles that are embodied not conceptual. primary family. Temporary primary family - vietnamese community in Mami's garden, out of joy, love and other things. Expanded family. Biggest threat to land ownership, because you can't trace it back. Trouble the question of land ownership.

Taey: can the queerness be expanded? the possibility - without the outlines and commitments. What other legacy can be left there; documentation? 

Ayesha: The idea of community - doesn't have to be permanant, temporary; hospitality as a steering towards

Taey: distributing roles - Laura - in charge of movement, choreography, constructing - 

Laura: stage before that - new pad, collectively write out a score across the next 10 days so we have something to all look at

Taey: stage before that - come up with the value of what we are going to carry, 7 values for instance. So that when we write, this informs the stories

stage 1 - values, each person brings 1 value, check if everyone is happy with these 7 things. Write a paragraph each, give a specific direction on what we want to write. Not a script, a directional statement / stage 2 - write a score / stage 3 - distribute roles, who makes what decision / then, more concrete plan

Taey: small moment of eating something - plant, soil, in mouth and digesting 

Laura - revisiting a gesture, stirring cauldron, stories, 

Ayesha: what are the continuous processes happening over the 3 hours (sunset etc); will the audience come and go, will they be taking part in something constantly for 3 hrs? what lasts and for how long? are you hosting or doing something else with the space? Or is it cyclical, with a repeating shape, returning and coming back and building momentum/accumulating in some way 

Laura - revisiting a gesture, stirring cauldron, stories, creating space, not about missing beginning of a story

Taey - pestle and mortar, cyclical movement, vomit, digestion, 

Laura - homeopathic method, Trituration - tiny piece of plant in lactose(?) do grinding for hours and taken notes of everything that's happening - form of receiving the qualities of the plant without ingesting it. works on resonance. If we intentionally decide to be in dialogue with the cai tuyet. Creating a frequency / sonic resonance that people can join in, collective container for these three hours, triturate concepts, triturate anything, just put it in. Resonance as a way of solidarity without direct - through direct relationship with experience. Trying to find out the behaviours and qualities of a medicine. 7 minutes each grinding, pass it on to the next person, do it for hours, each hour is for a specific realm for the plant consciousness - physical, spiritual, medicinal - different registers. Taking notes of everything ad anything you experience - mind wandering, images, your relationship to your own holistic experience. Takes hours. Build collective map of responses. Never final. What comes out doesn't fix that performance/being in a certain way - open ended quality, added to the plant's picture - picture of its tendencies, always relational

Next steps: every one contributes a value , then paragraph each to flesh it out. Then make a shared "script" in some way to flesh out the potential three hours duration; then delegation for making final decisions 
Value - in relation to documenta and mami's space. One word, what do you want us to carry
working simultaneously important

Next meeting: 1-2:30pm GMT (2-3:30 CET) Tuesday, 21st June (Please confirm your attendance: Taey, )


Meeting on 7th June 10-12AM BST
Taey, Mami, Youngsook & Cian

Youngsook: two aspects to consider - hospitalisty as a gentle way of occupying and reclaiming the space, and a shrine as a resultant of durational performance. Also possibility of elongating the duration so that the performance falls in a transition from daylight to sunset and darkness and making a fire as gathering point...

Taey: Shrine can go to the wall and shading structure Mani built. Two wooden poles can hold the fabric strips with written words. Interested in one plant 'Cải Tuyết', tasing wasabi in its core... Snow cabage, edible now. Thought of making kimchi with this plant. A ritual of digesting and sharing. 

Youngsook: may need some research about the plant itself. any histories and stories behind?

Mami: At the moment, we are letting the plants for blossoming so that in the future people can source the seeds out of them. 

Cian: Cavendish banana in a context of global trade of tropical fruits (i.e. sugar, pineapple, oil palm - cash crops). Extented from it, planning to share the peasant movement of Bungkalan (meaning 'fill the land) which is about reclaiming the land and recover the indigenous ways of bio diversity and rasing the issues around food sovreignty and farmers' struggles. Thinking of performative lecturing or storytelling...

Youngsook: the performance can reciprocate with the Bungkalan stories/research materials sent by Cian. Deliverying the collective/participatory reading around the fire... Creating links and parellel narraive between the garden in Kassel and the farmers lands in Philippines. Creating multi-lingual sonic scape to generate the sense of humility. It would be nice to have Cian's voice in the garden as a proximity. 

Cian: Thinking of what our role are in telling this stories of Bungkalan movement? Activating the archiving materials and hidden histories...  

Next direction: Cian shares the reading materials about Bungkalan, Taey proceeds more research about snow cabbage and different viet regional recipes around it, Youngsook develops the ideas of materialising the participatory process of live shrine making.


Third group meeting - agenda and collective notes
Thursday 26 May 10.00 - 12.00 BST
Attendees: Youngsook Choi, Taey Iohe, Tuan Mami, Laura Burns
Apologies: Helen Pritchard, Cian Dayrit, Thea Behrman 
<Ayesha came to share her sea home!>

documenta

1. Updates from May visit
2. open letter from ruanrupa https://www.e-flux.com/notes/467337/antisemitism-accusations-against-documenta-a-scandal-about-a-rumor
3. Practicalities/logistics (accomodation, public programme time, communication)

Meeting note: 
26th May

Mami - Moroccan artists building a social area at the car park, adjacent to Mami's garden. Currently at doing esidency work at leipzig, installation there from 11 July. 

Reflection of the visit
Laura: So much love in the garden. Warm welcoming open space. Oasis of the city. The question about making a critique-based work. How to avoid white-European  heaviness? How to keep amplifying the feeling of warmth and open-ness instead? What's naturally emerging through intimate sharing feels important...Trusting at the heart of it. Mami's weaving and coreographying is so beauitiful to witness. Special to come together in queerness. Affirming space - unexpected. Soft space. 

Taey: Discovering queerness together was a good suprise as we haven't really discussed about it before. That's the effect of in-person gathering. Mami's garden was a stage for it. Laura had more intimate connection to the garden. Mami's garden makes us honest and vulnerable. Going there is a long journey. Arriving in Mami's garden opens up and unfolds... Bossy Mami, ordering, listening and overlooking everything. So many visitors as well as contributors. Collective energy of nurturing the garden. Scavenging all the materials to build the garden. The most impressive part was people, not the plants. The connection and ownership through this space. Regardless of Documenta, this is a true value and real thing... well looked after man-made pond. Wondering about the aftermath of the gardenshed once documenta ends. Some of younger migrants who have very different sensibility in migrants movement. On the last day, Mami mentioned this garden doesn't have to be only for Vietnamese values. After the visit, more emphasis on the pleasure, gathering rathern than critical discursive works in terms of public programme. 

Laura: Movement out of storytelling each other felt related to specuative narrative building. Not sure whether it's because we were in touch of the soil. It felt multi-vocal. A couldron that merges so many things that are not yet imagined... 
Taey: Wahtever we do in July, it could be weaving the connection, one story to another.

Mami: One of the things I like is the sound (playing the recording). It has so many voices, including birds. The garden and plants are silent, but many voices underneath. I think about voices and stories... It can be delivered in our mother tongues. Felxible format, space of interpretation, different stories that are connected and creat the voice of garden. 

Laura: Visitors and contributors also the owners of the garden stories. Would any of them want to tell their sotries? Threading these stories feels important. For July, how we can connect different modalities between those present on site and those who sent the work remotely. 

Youngsook's listening picked up on the nature of formation of the garden as a Flexible, soft, open space.  

Next direction - all agreed not to pursue heavy critical type of work but more focusing on the pleasure of gathering and connections between people, plants and stories. It might be about forming a durational (about 3 hours) act that weaves movements, activation, voices etc.                
        


Travel date: 
6-11 Youngsook 
6-11 Laura

durational participatory space-making

Next meeting date: Tuesday 7th June 10am-12pm GMT 


*******************

Second group meeting - agenda and collective notes
Wednesday 27 APril 2022
10:00-12:00 BST

Attendees: Youngsook Choi, Cian Dayrit, Taey Iohe, Tuan Mami, Helen Pritchard, Laura Burns, Thea Behrman
Apologies: Ayesha Keshani 

documenta

1. speculative logbook
2. Practicalities/logistics (accomodation, public programme time, communication)

Deeper focus

1. Cian on maps
2. Helen on link with Roel Roscam Abbing Helen introducing potentical link with Roel Roscam Abbing who has built an infrastructure for documenta with Ruangrupa  https://lumbung.space/ - possibility to stream events from it also have chats and publish  to it (so if we wanted to do any publishing)

3. Thea Behrman (Estuary festival / South Essex Estuary park / Southend residencies)

---
notes
Mami shared Facebook Group that has great selection of images of the garden: https://www.facebook.com/groups/450735256841338
Mami is away for first week of May - sorting out irrigation for the raised beds
Helen has arranged to send Seedling lights from  Sweden but they didn't 

Thea - visit to Nante? on an estaury like Thames estaury - farm., art, bar centres for festival, 
unclear how integrated the community is but huge investment
retained industrial heritage of the place -kept that heritage - Bannana factory there 
La machine who are based there 
staying true to the history of the place - bulldozing and building something new 
trying to absorb some of the practice to see how it can inform the festival.....
agricola? something of nothing? making something of nothing
https://www.iledenantes.com/
https://www.levoyageanantes.fr/en/
https://www.lagronaute.fr/
MIN of Nantes
Public apology - Ama 
Saw the apology - and the poster 
would be good to hear from you - personal take and institutional take and investment to it and also realising that M, C, L might not know what was happening 
context - Thea - work about supporting new commissions and new artworks - project based 
Thea - always work with an openness and transparency. 
Metal - much about being based in a place where there was a need for cultural support and programming in these places - built upon these 3 areas
- artists developing ideas - residencies - and prof development
- second ...supporting artists connection to place
- thirdly that audiences have the opp to participate 
also adovcating for making the case for cultural investment 
chalkwell hall - metal restored 
funded spaces, residencies - 7 funded spaces 
residency theatre projects such as the rice and peas project
joining artists for breakfast - no required outcomes
top floor space used for different events - view across the estaury 
events making thinking doing discussions etc 
chalkwell park - platform for a number of different commissions
park itself - new work called reciprocity - lead a lot of guided tours - people will use an ipad or have a directed tour dealing with those permanent digital art works
big part of my role is working wiht Metal art Schhool - run workshops for people referred by GP, mental health services and take part in a faciliated programme of art therapy - all assessed on the mental health and well being scale -- difference in wellbeing on the course - one of the special things is the participants have the opp to meet with artists in residence - those things that normally dont happen - happen because of the location - still having to fight for funding to keep it going even though really subsrcibed
Estaury 2021  - across 23 days and 107 miles - big project worked in with Metal. so now securing the plans for next addition 24/25 - huge project for small artcentre
not jsut a festival how these new thinkings catalyse things 
new spaces for art and culture - how can we use the festival to create those kinds of context in a region that has been under invested in culture 
south essex region  - 6 different local authorities - to imagine a huge creative park 
research what the needs were with the sector - cultural leadership , skills, gaps, poor networks 
- wanted to share the apology as had huge ramifications - 
one of the members of staff copied Ama's programme was clearly very inappropriate and wasn't at all should have happened  - how to establish the best thing to do 
clearly the prog couldn't go ahead and the artists that were fudned and ama was compensated for the plagirism 
on a deeper level - metal is now involved in training and dev - to make sure everyone in the team is aware and resourced to the context we work in - interested to hear your feedback on its a mistake that has amplified and approach and an attitude that needs to be addressed 
do you know what sentences they were how it was planned - what was the idea from metal to put it together 
was agreed shouldn't be brushed under the carpet and should be used as an example how poc work has been stolen by white led institutions  - compensation to all the applicants, and public apology, and all staff now being engaged with personal objectives etc  
Taey - its rare to see this being made public and the way that metal, artsadmin and ama worked together re shape the reconciliation - it hurts because on all levels we have all seen this on a personal and public level - how to protect, so many artists so many writers dont know how to deal with this how to negotiate - at same time because this is reocrruing tendency in the art world and the western wold and capitalist world in general stealing peoples sentences and ideas from people who are underfunded it becomes a topic we should talk about and what do we see as the future of metal as a group ... thanks for sharing 
there is more that metal have to do and recognise its the tip of the iceberg and enable people to challenge this by doing what wev'e done provide an example 
thea - wanted to share and because to give the option of whether you want to work with metal or not after this 
youngsook - there is many you have to protect against - its really nice for you to share it - its the tip of the iceberg and requires a longtime journey - how all the discussions and how it gets translated into ethical frames and policy - good thing it happened and we do it to each other as well 
Taey -talked about how the conversation has been and a training in place - when is school there is training and software but its not about technicality its more about the intellectural colonialism we are experiencing now and how we workign on the land, connects to mami's work, cians' work everyones work 
seems that decolonial botany could contribute to an ethical framework not as the person that does the dirty job in the end of the solidarity chain in culture - but as a collaborator - its seems more important to have lesssons, than training 
its true its deeper than that - not abou tdoing the trainign and moving
have it in mind that decolonial botany - 
cian - dont exactly expect to know the whole context - trying to wrap my head over what is or was done -
the compensation of ama seems clear and the steps of inbalances and steps on what they happened and these do things happen and half the time not deliberately - maybe i couldn't help but think about what else could have been done of extending the readership of her work  the pullign out of metal erases the traces but maybe we dont want to erase the traces but recognise that it has happened but recognise who or what --- this could also add to a layer of her work the discrouse of her work and coudl also provide and opp to expand the notions of representation and misrepresentation  - reading group was a good idea - next time in a different context - we are all learnign from this 
my understanding is that metal wanted to support her taking the lead on this  - and we will see what happens on this 
easier said than done - something we learn from and try not to repeat it - can look at it from the position of what do we do if it happens again where in everyone is compensated maybe some people where really wanting to join that reading group and could have really benefitted from it - caual conversations from it for all the parties to address it together and learn from each other 
thanks for being very transparent about it really appreciate it 
mami - thanks for sharing it i agree with cian we should not too open up for more discussion and the case for it by sharing and creating the dialogue we might learn from that in the future it happen all the time in art world we should learn and we shoudl take it as as study case 
youngsook - wants to add whast the nature of the training - is it plagirism - as that isolated it as part of the colonial operations and extractivism so should be really careful design in the steps and all the people deisgned.. its not just about two sentences - training is about a long process to look into the context of why it happened in the first place -
workign group that has been convened to address it across the board - how this could be a wider issue 
not just about plagisirm checkers 
thea - appreciate the feeback and suggestions

documenta and the speculative log book 
discussed this last time and felt not much support - 
situation has slightly shifted good weather and more hands - decided not to do the log book as already late on in this stage and is a lot of work and is a lot of work and what it looks like as a team and didn't want to put the stress on us either 
that doesn mean we can't lift what mami and has done in the land in a diff way 
t, h, l are joining mami in the garden - 12-16 may 
plan to daytime for help with planting and physiucal work 
evening use the time to prepare meeting up in july and helen mentioned some people who might be interested in our work Mi Yu -at Kassel University - she isn't acutely fitting in our theme but as she is in kassel could be good to have someone local on board and have a conversation - be lovely to hear frm everyone 
m - what can we prepare in advance for july ?
is there any idea to support for the gathering thats also a question - maybe there is a way 
run out the budget so everything on a personal resource - feel shameful that everyone trys to come and everyone wants to support and how to pay back or contribute to the group 
maybe Thea can have more overview on the curatorial strategies to contribute to the group and for helen someone shared me the kassel university a tropical garden and there is some plants there - maybe if Mi can bring mami to the garden to visit ... 
Thea is in fundraising mode - haven't come across other sources and my focus is on estaury to find some money will be .. will do some thinking and ask  what sort of level of funding are we talking about ... its challenging .. 
we have word you pay in your labor in kind - 
we tried a big budget but we didn't succeed but i will also look for some funding to support us but it may not happen - 
part of the work to do together would secure db with a base and a trajectory beyond july and happy to support that work to secure that funding for you 
helen to ask ren to put us in touch with mi and then explore the kassel university garden 
the trees - controbuting back to the community there - a tree from vietnam and not easy to have it here - people sharing if there is a chance to get resource from the univerdity to controbute back to the community a new thinking from me - when i saw the picture to get the resources and bring back to the community 

Current thinking on the July event
Cian can't be there as doesn't have money to travel
Singapore art show - work itself is completed and on its way
Other work is about bananas and tracing links between work in plantation setting, industrial food regime and connection to global supply chain of Cavendish Bananas, Philipenes is biggest exporter
the work is a textile piece which takes a form of a tapestry which connects through mapping the networks of power and labor and its imbalanaces and trying to take the research into a piece of writing and to present and related to the idea of decolonising botany quite literally really - on and off investigations for july what im thinking it a work in progress paper - a lecture performance - but i guess within this context i can do something within that format something in july in relation to this - 
image in this work 
Cavendish Bannans - such a colonial name
takes it names from the grosmichelle? - made a new banana this partcular bannana the one you know doesn't have spots or seeds cannot reproduce on its own - its a plant not a fruit 
all cavendish bananas is a clone from one plant - one dna one individual - looking at it as a characer used a certain way by colinial or capitlist powers everythign that happens around it gives it new forms of life that gives plot twists everyone has an idea of banana and what banana is particulary the cavendish banana particularly in the phillpines the struggle agaisnt the workings of transnational argibusiness - and semil feudalism how its still alive in the 21c and the bulk of the story of what im trying to come up with 
just thinking how to share it in the garden 
dont need to problematise right now - if need i can fund it myself an internet connection and a projector but i dont want you to stress to much about it 
during july - the light will be bright till 10 - so projection in the garden not poss
two small wooden huts one for collab, one for the library of seeds, 
if another of our members having the room for the residency space so might be possible to present something projection event in that space.. imagine its quite small but maybe not necc to do a really big projection - living room tea cermony installation for 20 people in the residency in the house and speaker and projector can probably borrow
t - walkable from the garden or diff documenta space indoor space we could have a lecture using the tech and take the conversation that might happen after in the garden after - small online session for Cian and Ayesha to be included everything doesnt have to be in the garden maybe one week before and then tie into the garden discussion ... 
if we have a good projector could make a projecion on the wooden hut and see it around the garden 
but not sure if can find a good projector the one that can stay with the bright light - but i know that there is that projector available 
inside of the area there is a two floor underground space that are huge that belong to other artists can talk to people to see if possible to organise something underground place 
worst case installation in the hut 
pond for the water plant - 40 years water plant found in the village around the where there was a refugee camps and over 2000 people from vietnam the camp was there 1980 -1985 but after that people found around the village area and canals they survive from then til now which is why i call it the 40 years plant 
< 3 <3 <3
shaping up mami! 
youngsook - not very determinate idea - but thinking some things around the communal garden and the vietnamese community - mini shrine that can be collectively built but the context of the shrine is the question because my work about grief and community grief so how to bring the narrative of this partuclar piece of soil and land to the community building and instigating this practice these are rough things in my head but thinking about adaptive form of work that can accomdate many peoples acts - that can go into the garden ... 
Helen - being there to gather thoughts. Heavy metals in the soil. Thinking about how to continually --- heavy metals affect how you are in the garden. Long term thinking about the garden and soil remediation. Reading poetry together in the evening with Taey, the sacred and the garden. Different sedimentations. 
Practical thing: Roel? to chat with us - the online space for documenta - Cian and Ayesha contributing remotely into that space, or publishing directly into that space at a later date. Potential to livestream in that interface without using Zoom.
Originally R worked on bibiotecha server allows sharing of books in a space. A local book sharing server, download, share and upload books. A way to run a really low impact repositary for books. Could add another interesting layer
Taey - likes Y & H approach, for the community can stay a long time. Investing in the future something online and accessible. 
Initial invitation: gather and hang out! Not get stressed out!!
No structure/no timescale - adds to the stress
when we are there can see about a structure and how to mobilise this and the space 
Met the owners of a restaurant in Kassel on screen!
y - not feeling stressed
t - i dont think we need to presenet work 
m- we are free and the programme is just about gathering - dont know what i might do - might throw a prty or a story or invite people to share their thinking open mind at the moment 
youngsook - if you throw a party i will make a cocktail with things from the garden and cavendish bannanas
programme - sat and sunday 
m - im more like ok everything can happen - i dont know how to make a schedule 
lots of people will come - should be lovely! 
13th may 2pm uk time - one hour casual meeting 
Roel Roscam Abbing https://test.roelof.info/  https://varia.zone/
 and turns out he has built an infrastructure for documenta with Ruangrupa 
 https://lumbung.space/
 
**********************************************
First group meeting - agenda and collective notes
Thursday 31 March 2022
14:00-16:00 BST

Attendees:
Youngsook Choi, Cian Dayrit, Taey Iohe, Tuan Mami, Helen Pritchard, Ayesha Keshani, Thea Behrman
Apologies: Laura Burns

1400-14.05 Welcome: focus of first meeting

1. to understand everyone's current focus in relation to Decolonising Botany
2. shape the documenta DB programme for the garden (8-10 July)
3. gather insight for longer-term vision and programme

14:05-15:25 Deeper focus
Each person to share 10 minute updates with the group on their current practice and research focus:

• Ayesha Keshani 
• Youngsook Choi
• Cian Dayrit on mapping
• Taey Iohe
• Helen Pritchard
• Thea Behrman (Estuary festival / South Essex Estuary park / Southend residencies)
• Tuan Mami

15:25-15:30 documenta garden introduction 
Tuan Mami to give overview of the garden and wider programme 

documenta discussion 

• DB public events on 2nd weekend 8-10 July 2022
• Central themes/ideas
• Activities/interventions - what shape should they take?
• What is the audience experience?
• Practicalities/logistics (accomodation, public programme time, communication)

Helen introducing potentical link with Roel Roscam Abbing who has built an infrastructure for documenta with Ruangrupa  https://lumbung.space/ - possibility to stream events from it also have chats and publish  to it (so if we wanted to do any publishing)

The location:Werner-Hilpert-Straße 22


15:50-16:00 Summary and next steps
Thea to summarise actions agreed 
All to set date for next meeting


---
Notes
Thea welcome
Taey - adjustments, impacts on daily life embracing what it means to decolonising body and decolonising botany 
been researching about hormones - ostreogen relation to the environment to environment and plants 
discovering very new understanding 1950s - before menopause and changes, 
what is reproduction politics in botany as aall about growing something new and growing things for prift, new were exploitation in production - human level, plant level.. what it means to go to documenta - personaally im really excited to go as we dont have any funding.. but love to see more decolonising practices - realises what it means to a guest for mami - we are the guest for kassel garden, guest in the earth only come briefly and then pass on - even though claiming - realising only briefly going to be there... how does it mean to come as a guest in mami's garden ... big circle as visitors... wonder if possible to digest that.. all travelling and not responsible - how does it make mami feel to know you make the garden and not be there - and after you pass on to the community - artist come and go and then leave - the temporality qquite interesting in botany.. as plants come and go and die. 

ayesha thank you and thinking on these terms and maybe to take them up as a group .. guest worker - 
cian - never thought of the idea of guest work - and diff ideas and places of what it means to be a guest and reminds me od a decolinial idea of being a guest and solidarity of being in a space that is not yours and questioning ownership and which also reminds me of how we could think about how gardens are somewhat controlled nature.. gardens are a pocket size way of containing a microcosm of flora and fauna and a colonial instrument to gather samples of life - productive tool  to share.. to share samples of life 

Cian -- in Katmandu - last day of the biennale, 4th edition and to forground indigenous perspectives and our tools within it 
pretty much centerd on the idea of gardens - at the Taragoan museum - a lot of the work there reflects upon how colonial practices has empted to control nature and thats the general context of me being there other than being a tourist  - first tie here - finding connections in the context, not often in place that not english speaking, taking it in maneouvering around the city https://taragaonmuseum.com/ - gardens as colonial instruments and local endmic and foreign flora and fauna - one particular work by local artist that is a garden /small simulation or the rice paddies.. mostly upland rice - artist come from a community that is agricultural .. her work is a rice paddy.. small patches that is intop of these metal structures that look at scaffolding - rapid urbanisation in the city -- agricultural land .. important to point lots of participation .. by local nepali artists and thats what makes it reall strong local young woke voices addressing the current conditions historical and political.... counter mapping workshops online - also two textile pieces - originally in dusseldorf - two specific regions in the phillipines, collaborating with orgs in these regions, land rights, textile maps showing different types of land grabbing effects and militarisaiton.. small selection of handdrawn maps that were drawn by participants in previous workshops  - interact with audience and schools and invested a lot in their educational programming - art students or fresh grads, and be and audience myself.. and to seee kids ask questions.. the questions around state power and watching people watching the work .. 
Ayesha
process of recovery.. rough end of year and focusing on trying to get back to things... stopping smoking and focusing on health -- deep in the phd taking up entire life and about the head to malaysia and finish everything couldnt do in the last two years going back to a lot of fss and decolonial literature and refusal and hospitality and hosting.. and the gues worker and wwhere refusal sits within that , sharing knowldge and witholding knowldge and what it means with sharing bodies witholding bodies and museum of plantation and histories and the role of the museum - econbomic botany histories the plantation as a figure with long links aith oceana carribean and skilling up and 3d modelling and grappling with this.. will be away in up until documenta so trying to figure out dates to see if i can fly back there... 
taey - we had the whole time to talk about each other practice id love to hear a bit more depth in the future in our meetings - cian on the mappings and histories and colinial histories and is dense and needs to be read as a group.. homework to do .. be nice to look at them more properly .. we've heard in the launch its getting deeper.... maybe we can make more space to hold about the practice more linger term.... 

Helen - community safety about creating (food, energy, learning) rather than refusing surveillance etc. How to hold refusal to some structures we want to damage while generating other practices. 
Reform to revolution - refusal
Practice and refusal
Community depletion - to act/refuse
Covid illness
Currently in Sweden - regenerative communities
Feminist farmers. Remediation and regeneration
A car park next to Linnaus University - high toxicity in the ground
Exploring microbionia nematodes
Working with Miranda
Creating urine battery for electricity - soil too.
Queering damage / living with toxicity and damages
Refusal as a way to refuse damage
Crying / anxiety / depression / partying
Involve more people
Safety and community in farms - Leah Penniman
Refusal to structures / community
Copper - “a vibrant death”


Youngsook - ecological grief.. huge mining site , quality of land,. looking at land as a social political nercopsy - how trauma is mtaeiralised in the soil and also the communities really suffering in the post industrial era.. struggling how to make the pain points connected through the soil, human community is struggling  - working in st Helens on a rainy day and pouring rain - -- its huge site and overwhelming and ex mining field.. patches that cannot grow anything- forestry manager planted pine trees - cleaning all the toxins , time as plantation.. birchwood is a strong contender to spread the seeds -- not to make a scientific analysis but to see things based on differen trauma working how experts will look at the visual data - looking more through the angle of ecological grief - but he will have more facts around it but also thinking and inolving the community with this grief .. 
unemployed level is pretty high, clay pit, mining pit, dumping ground of glass manufacturing, series of trauma in industrial damage and people working with different things and damages and jobs to recover from that time high suicide rate, commuity you can see the contrast.... st helens - north england just next to liverpool.. 
soil and land Lilies of trauma
St Helen’s former mining site. How trauma is materialised. Communities are suffering. 
Hugh site / patches. Pine trees planted to cleanse. 
Looking at patterns
Post industrial site with academic 
‘Ecological grief’ 


(Mami's garden) the site of the garden used to be a factory site.

in the factory process they would throw some chemicals into the garden - not healthy soils, to suggest to create the new soil ontop of the old soil.. and i couldn't imagine and tried to dig into the soil... materials like bottle and metal under the soil... interesting to take some time in the soil here ..... 

Mami - pretty depressing to work with documenta these last weeks - i wanted to quit and runaway - rules that relates to human and arts.. creates difficulty - community based .. learning flexibility... my process is the process of learning and brining people together the structure at the instittuiosn they create a lot of dififculty.. volunteer if you go through documenta - you can't let people in during the weekday - but might rule is that people should eb able to come - so the rules make it difficult  - the vietnamese community here super suportive and give me a lot of energy and give the strength to continue the project ... 
i know its a bad situ - no support for your trip, my project is very small with the whole collective and participation sharing with many people - 14 other artists invited to so divided the budget to many differnt parts - dont have budget to stay in kassel -- my project is about people and brining them together ... the structure and the floor plan isn't designed by muself - time frame coming to kassel  - if you want to make a garden you have to come early march to prepare the soil and start working on the seedling.. and make a meeting with the vietnamese community - which plants and where they wnat to grow... structure of the community - i combine their ideas and wishes... bringing the idea and creating a platform for their work ..want to see the garden grow.... almost no body has ever seen documenta before , living there for 20 years maybe one or two have seen documenta but most people have no idea... except crowded... busy ... this garden they start to feel excited to join documenta and feel its possible to deveklop the artwork and garden with me ... 
i feel they dont want arists to come to make the work they want to make the work -- commitment the chance to work witht he vietnames poeple and they seem like the are really committed to the walk .. try to be away from them ,,,they make more trouble for the community based work 
thea - underscores the simple diary that you lit a fire... when it get to july how are they going to connect to that.. what you and the community have given to make the garden a reality.. Mami - the work is for people, their lifes and their mental health.. i feel by seeing the garden growing.. i can see the spiritual growing too .. happiness to be together.. even i dont know how long i can continue to carry on the garden the committee when they know its a platform and can contribute something together - covid, war - strong way to support each nother, not just material but spirit. People dropping by to talk, meet other people, 
Taey - lumbang, curatorial concept, working well together - in practice documenta not thinking about how much it takes to make community, to make lumbang in the middle of kassel, mami's garden as political site. But as guest - don't want to stir up anger that is already in place. Making a statement - how much work has been put in this soil, garden - makes people to see how unsupported the garden has been. Not just a document but a statement, a refusal, can we help as collective action?
Youngsook - more complicated than between documenta/ruangrupa/nha san/ mami = but also the piece of land - how to reclaim this piece of garden, created by community endeavour - can be interesting political action to consider. What happens after documenta - transferred to some arts org? Increasing property value. How to bring these layers around this piece of land. 
Taey - familiarity of process, artist cultivating land, contents, institution taking for copyright, for fundraising, capital, exploitative narrative, 
Mami - questions of power between law / human feelings. natural processes cannot follow structure  
how do I know how many people will come? when you work with commmunity you won't know how many people, joining as a supporter  not as following documenta's rule - showign the alternative way to work not as what the institution requires 
ayesha - youngsook suggesting, the labour, or keeping it private, or the legal basis , how much is it important to proect that community that isn't put on a platform for documenta.. many people dont want to show up, record, working with the community is sensitive - can't follow the official way - some other name, how to commit or how to create a transparent record but also protect the people that come with you .. even the illegal worker... they still come to help if the information released - human humility level - sensitive thing .. 
cian - labour has always been qauntidfied and the log has always been a tool of control - relate a lot becasue i work a lot with the space and synamic of power, agency and without extracting the identities vulnerable to furthe r surveillance and control.. one idea.. that is also in relaiton to makign a diary... length of time and participation each communtiy member, log book of their reflection and feeling, might be a good way to register their own experience without having the reveal their identity.. walkign through diffferent sites - log book of guests - very beautiful for the artists to spend tie with the log book and have a sense with how people respond to the different labour people are putting in ... contestation,, bodies ,. we can extend this to the records or the documents or the collective journal could eb a good way to document... 

communtiy with the trauma. community delicate matters, draw upon the letter, the complaint this is what we demand as a collective if this is waht you do when working with a communuty.. ,this time they are not ready yet .. 

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