In the seventh Myvillages Exhibition, Kent in the South of England meets Franschhoek Valley, located at the Western Cape of Southafrica. Ownership of land and outdoor work are the main topics of the penultimate part in this series. For two years and in the context of an eight- piece exhibition, the GfZK is the host of projects by Myvillages from different rural regions of the world.
Since 2014, the Myvillages artist Kathrin Böhm has been working on the project Company Drinks in Kent, an assignment that deals with a very special local city-country relationship. Each year between 1850 and 1950, the women and children of the working class would drive from the highly traditional East End of London to the county of Kent, to assist in the hop harvest. For them, this “going picking” was the only option to improve the home economics.
The movie “Foreign Pickers”, that will be screened at the seventh and eighth International Village Show, prioritizes the “Politics of Picking”. These days, instead of the thousands of Women and Men from Eastlondon which were reffered to as ‘foreigners’ at the time, there are mostly young Easteuropeans picking fruit and berries in Kent. The movie highlights the stories of both groups and describes the process of domestication. The movie was shot only a few days before the EU- referendum in Great Britain.
Since the year 2000, Myvillages have been working on a project named I like being a farmer, trading goods with farmers all over Europe. The artist Antje Schiffers creates a painting of the farm and in exchange receives a commented film portraying the farmers at work. By now, there are more than 30 of these movies in the archives. The International Village Show 7/8 will be showing the most recent movie about the winery Solms Delta, located in Franschhoek Valley, Southafrica. The self- description revolvs around positioning yourself in the intense competion of the wine-growing business, landownership and Black Economic Empowerment. The bar at the exhibition will be stocked with wine from Solms Delta.
