The Fertile Crescent is a work in progress that revolves around body, grass, bread, grain and society. It all begins with the story of how what we call civilization arose in a croissant-shaped area on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in what is now the Middle East.
There once was a genetic mutation that caused the grass’s ripe grains to stay on their ears instead of falling off. About 9,000 years ago, people saw the benefits of this and began to grow, harvest and store grain. Every now and then a series of problems and opportunities arose linked to foresight, for example taxation, permanent residence, landscape change, anxiety and bread.
During my Art Inside Out residency, I have drawn out Halland’s own fertile crescent along the coastline of Laholmsbukten. I have cycled the curved stretch on the sandy beach up towards Laxvik, bathed my feet in Knäred’s mill fall, eaten flat and well-fermented bread made from cultured grain, and seen cardboard bags being filled and sealed with freshly ground flour. 90% of Halland’s economic turnover takes place on the coastal strip between the highway E6 and the sea. But on the other side of the highway there is also civilization.
At the beginning of the summer, I built a four-meter-long two-row ear of barley from compost bags, wheat starch and reeds in my studio in Stockholm. I painted it green and let the paint dry until August. Then I took my seed with me to Halmstad to, in the spirit of Gösta Ekman’s Papphammar, where I documented crossing the road 15 without panties carrying the ax in my arms.
Modern grain varieties have shorter straws than the old ones, which means that the fungal spores that usually stay low to the soil take hold among the grains of the ear. Then you have to spray with fungicide.
The grains and sprouts are green and unripe when they stand leaning against the whitewashed facade of Steninge church. We drive them to Oskarström and as the afternoon sun finds its way further and further into the brick warehouse, I paint the grain ripe. The day we are to film on the beach, the rain pours down. If you harvest when it has rained, the flour will be weak because the germination enzymes have been activated. If it is sunny, the flour will be strong. It starts to blow and clears up until the evening. I drag my ax over the dunes and out to sea.
// Ingela Ihrman
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