Welcome to Back to the Land 2.0
The aim of this international course is to introduce an approach to design for sustainable development that addressed a live issue regarding food systems. The course will investigate ways to enhance food culture and security by developing local food systems that connect aesthetic, social, ecological and economic factors. It is run from Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm Sweden in collaboration with John Thackara and Örebro University, Campus Grythyttan School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science. (see partners)
Design proposals will be developed collaboratively using the social technology and process method Theory U (Scharmer, 2016). Theory U is a proven approach to design interventions that are intended to transform complex contexts (such as food) towards a resilient state. This work is rooted in an understanding of local context and issues and is achieved with input from leading national and international experts /research leaders.
The course includes a live workshop, in a rural region of Sweden, in which students, partners, experts and teachers from Sweden and internationally, share their experiences, and adapt models and approaches tested in other contexts.
Before and after the live workshop week, the course involves distance work through email and the course webpage.
We have organized the course around these three activities: 1) Preparatory activity, 2) Workshop week on site and 3) Refection:
1, Preparatory activity has two assignments and is to be done individually. It involves watching videos, reading key texts on approaches to design within systems based on an understanding of ecological and social assets and the collection and selection of relevant case studies. Participants will prepare a design study in one of their own local food systems and present this in a poster format that can be shared and communicated. The work is done at a distance, course materials are provided digitally and assignments are submitted digitally.
2, Workshop Week involves meet together for a one week workshop at Hjulsjö village on the countryside in Sweden. Participants will investigate food system resilience, on site, by carrying out local studies, interest board meetings, dialogues and tutorials. You will work with local and external food experts such as: agro-forestry, eco farming, ecological ranching and food waste.
The course will be structured around the five stages of the Theory U-process, a model founded by the Presencing Institute.
The different stages involve suspending judgement, embodied meditative and performative activities, poetic reflection, journaling, mapping and other activities that make tangible connections to intangible experiences.
Participants will also carry out communication, affirmative feedback and knowledge exchange activities during the week, with a focus on the co-creation of collective meals whose content, process and form express ecological and sustainable perspectives. A local and national Swedish perspective will be shared in relation to insight from our International participants who will be encouraged to propose practices from their own cultures with the potential to be adapted locally.
New ways to re-connect the city with the land will be a core theme: Ways that are part-time, but long-term; ways that involve an exchange of value, not just paying money; ways in which land, knowledge, and equipment are shared in new ways; ways based on the re-discovery of historical links between town and country – but reinvented in an age of networks and social innovation.
3, Reflection
This work is done at a distance following the live workshop assignments are submitted digitally for examination. Student review and critically reflect on the methods learned and /or proposals developed during the workshop week. Each student refines these experiences according to their own perspective, skills, and long-term interests for themselves, the participants and for the community. The teaching team will provide 1:1 feedback in writing, and/or by Skype about these reflections.
Thanks to Jonas Lundin and Rebecca Deans for their support in planing and co-hosting the seminar to prototyping this course in 2016.
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Contact
To contact the teaching team email: backtotheland@konstfack.se
Answers to your frequently answered questions will be posted on this Course Website under the FAQ link 2017.05. 30
Åsa Öström is professor in Culinary Arts and Meal Sciences at Campus Grythyttan, Örebro University. She conducts research projects in sensory science concerning the interaction of food and drink as well as consumer preferences. She is currently involved in the national project called:
Smake Sverige = Taste Sweden (smakasverige.jordbruksverket.se) where she works in a multi-disciplinary team studying how taste is a multifaceted concept that combines experience with all our senses with how we value these experiences in relation to the context and cultural awareness. Öströms position at Grythyttan is in coordinating research in a multi-disciplinary team as well as teaching sensory studies to cooks, sommelier and create event designers.
Shower & WC 
The course is run from Konstfack’s DIV Institute; Design, Interior design and Visual communication. Course leader: Konstfack-Cheryl Akner Koler, Professor in Aesthetics at Konstfack, University College of Arts, crafts and Design, in collaboration with Örebro University, Campus Grythyttan School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts &Meal Science, Annika Göran Rodell is an expert in sustainable leadership and will by facilitating the U-theory process.
Örebro University, Campus Grythyttan School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts &Meal Science, The unique academic, multi-disciplinary profile brings together professional and academically merited culinary artists with long experience in the aesthetic gestalt process as well as researchers from the learning & life sciences. We collaborate with
VÄRT is sustainable platform that gives workshops on how to work and learn about vegetarian food waste in order to 
has one foot in academia, with a background in Systems Ecology, and has 18 years of experience of inter- and transdisciplinary environmental studies, and is now a part time teacher on sustainable development and urban agriculture at Stockholm University. She has also a practical background in organic farming and entrepreneurship. Lives part time in Kopparberg (close to Hjulsjö) practicing small scale farming for self subsistence purpose which includes growing of fruits, nuts and vegetables, sheep farming and bee hiving mixed with a lot of harvesting from the surrounding forest. She is inparticular interested in applied agroecology and has created a forest garden as a part of a national pilot research project at Örebro University. This became a platform for her own PhD project which includes the exploration of the possibilities for edible forest gardens in urban areas. She is one of the initiators of the urban agriculture community in Stockholm, with experience from starting up several gardens. She is also interested in science communication and has been involved in exhibitions such as “Manna” on our food systems dependency on natural ecosystems, “Tipping Points” at Kulturhuset , Stockholm, and she has designed the urban garden “Odla Staden” ongoing at Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, Stockholm.
Ellen Mulderij & Rudy Hobbenschot run their family sheep ranch in the heart of Hjulsjö. They have been key partners in generously supporting the Back to the Land 2.0 summer course. They have been our main support in working with the hjulsjö community, making it possible to adapt the missions house to our need as well as arranging camping facilities and lodging. They will share their ranching lifestyle with us and work with a group and other members of the hjulsjö community to create the main meal experience for the village feast on Friday.
Magnus & Märta Westling work together on their conservation cultivation project and Hjulsjö 103 Inn. Magnus is PhD student at Örebro University, Campus Grythyttan School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts &Meal Science. Magnus will share his eco gardening knowledge with us and lead a group in exploring the taste and haptic experience of Swedish heritage food, starting with a humbly grey pea. His PhD-project is to develop gastronomic design combined with using sensory evaluation on the basis of cultivated diversity in order to evaluate traditional varieties functioning in culinary practices and meals. Both Magnus and Märta seek to investigate gastronomic potential of traditional food varieties. Thier approach enables us to learn about environmental sustainability, meal culture, craftsmanship, traditions and biodiversity in food production and consumption from the discussion table to the dining table. Link https://www.hjulsjo103.se/