Peace with the Earth — Tracing Agricultural Memory

Peace on Earth and a new and peaceful relationship with the Earth are inseparable. The book Peace with the Earth — Tracing Agricultural Memory, Refiguring Practice reveals gaps and inconsistencies in historical narratives, opening up ideas for possible cultivation systems that nurture the soil and its habitat. Grounded in research into agricultural practices on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, the quotations, documents and photographs of dead and living matter presented in the book Peace with the Earth — Tracing Agricultural Memory, Refiguring Practice testify to ways of living off the land. These assemblages sketch out the nurturing environments of three relict crops cultivated from prehistoric times until the present day. Gotland is located on the periphery of southern Scandinavia, a region that, a hundred years ago, emerged into an epicentre for agribusiness expansion. The enquiry responds to the call, made by two Swedish suffragettes and peace activists Elisabeth Tamm (1880–1958) and Elin Wägner (1882–1949) in their pamphlet Fred med Jorden (Peace with the Earth, 1940). Peace with the Earth — Tracing Agricultural Memory, Refiguring Practice, edited by Senior Lecturer Ros Gray, is part of a series of work that investigate agricultural narratives and practices initiated by artist, writer, and curator Åsa Sonjasdotter.   23