Category: 2013

The Feed Store. Byers, Colorado. Building materials, social project. 2011–2017.

The Feed Store served as the base of operations for M12 from 2011-2017. Once a bank, post office, grocery store, and feed and ranch supply shop, the 4,000-square-foot building served as the M12 office, studio, workshop, and an experimental space for rural cultural activities. The importance of The Feed Store lies in its presence in small-town America, serving as a transcultural hub where disparate activities and people crossover. The Feed Store hosted over 200 artists, writers, researchers, and university students and shared their work with regional residents through exhibitions, performances and readings. The building was renovated in collaboration with the Art & Rural Environments Field School at the University of Colorado, Boulder. At last check, The Feed Store had tracked over 2000 visitors, was home to 20+ exhibitions, 15+ on-site projects in the region, and the proving grounds for 8 pressed records, 6 published books, and 5 collaborative working group summits.

Elder’s Hill. Kultivator Farm, Öland, Sweden. Earth form, root cellar, building materials. 2013.

Elder’s Hill is an on-site project by M12 (USA) and Kultivator (SE) located in Öland, Sweden. As a collaborative work, Elder’s Hill is emblematic of both M12 and Kultivator’s artistic practices, based largely around cultural exchange and intergenerational knowledge within a rural context. There are two main components to the work: a root cellar and an open-air classroom. Inspired by 19th century earth shelters built both in America and in rural Sweden, the structure is built using earth, stone, and wood with simple hand tools and materials readily available in the landscape. The root cellar performs as a learning collection, housing regional culinary traditions. The open-air classroom, located on top of the root cellar, is a space for social learning, sharing, and teaching by community elders. A roughly 70-year old fallen tree has been placed in the middle of the space to encourages further group learning and reflection on themes found within the work.