Grounding resilience – seeds of security for uncertain times
Grounding resilience – seeds of security for uncertain times is a project created in active collaboration with Visseltofta, a local Swedish community. Throughout the project we explore their resilience with a socially responsive design approach. We work with participatory interventions through- and about food in constant collective rethinking processes. Using languaging as a tool, we unravel the meaning behind resilience and “beredskap” (preparedness). By focusing on food as a tangible aspect of resilience we strengthen togetherness and find a shared understanding despite having different perspectives. We counteract the government’s expressed language on preparedness, through the design of a booklet co-created with the community using languaging in our verbal and visual communication. Through shifting the focus in time from future concerns to present actions, we break down the journey to manageable steps, taking the worry of uncertainty away. With the abandoned root cellar, our aim was to turn it into a food sharing space, where people can store and share surplus. By re-awakening this unused space, we set an example of taking a concrete step that recognizes the potential in forgotten resources and routines.
Introduction to our journey on the bumpy road
When existing systems fail, such as supermarkets, industrial food production, or supply chains, we’re reminded of how dependent we are on these structures. Being prepared can look different for everyone. Mentally, through listening to our needs and coming together; emotionally, by validating and dealing with the feelings that surface; and physically, by breaking down the big challenge to small steps. Preparing together, communities can create a foundation of stability and reliance, allowing individuals to navigate challenges with greater confidence and peace of mind.
During our talks with people from Visseltofta, emerged, describing beredskap like driving down a road and suddenly hitting a bump that jolts us and reminds us to hold on tighter. For this reason, it’s important to build our own strength and resilience in case we face a bump in the road, we are prepared and can take it with ease and confidence.
Preparing for uncertainty and building resilience is not a simple task but it’s possible. We believe that our strength is in participation, togetherness and care. When we share not only the burdens, but also our resources and knowledge, challenges become easier to handle and less overwhelming.
When we work together, we build more than just preparedness, we build a resilient community.
The first steps of our journey towards resilience
Throughout the second year of our master studies, we built up a collaboration with the community of Visseltofta, a small yet vibrant village in the Skåne region of Sweden. This collaboration was not only an exciting opportunity for us to work with local people, but in Visseltofta we had the chance to connect with a lively and welcoming community. This partnership was so fruitful and inspiring, that we decided to continue working with the community, inviting them to join us as collaborators in shaping our thesis project. During our previous work with the community, they articulated their goal to build resilience against possible environmental or economic challenges and stand on “their own two feet”. The driving issue we focus on is how to contribute to Visseltofta’s resilience for any potential crises, while bringing people together and connecting through food.
We believe that establishing strong relationships and aligning our motivations and vision are essential when introducing a new project, even though we have worked with some of the community members before. To shape this common ground together, we organized a first intervention using the cultural probe as a tool to explore the participants’ relationships with the topic, establish a shared understanding and activate the collective mind. The prompt – “Bring something that means preparedness for you!” – encouraged participants to reflect on the topic in advance, helping them arrive with a prepared mindset and a clear sense of their personal connections to beredskap.
The shared items and ideas – potatoes, wood, soil, dried mushrooms, a plan of a bunker in the garden, headlamps, book about preparedness – and the conversations around them showed us the importance of food in connection with preparedness. By opening up the conversation and changing from individual to collective perspectives we recognized the strength of the community.
Building a collective understanding from individual insights piece by piece, like a puzzle.
Communication matters ? Beredsmak – Let’s taste resilience together?
The associations and conversations we had around the topic, resembled a mindset of facing the unknown together without panic or rushed decisions, but with calmness and being collected. However, conversations around beredskap are often framed in ways that provoke fear and anxiety. An example is the government-issued booklet “Om krisen eller kriget kommer”. The language in this publication is very definitive and alarming, implying that a crisis – or war – is inevitably coming and it is just a matter of time. The visual language is using a bright, alarming yellow and a soldier with a weapon on the cover.
To balance out the stressful communication, we hosted a gathering called “Beredsmak” to approach the topic of resilience differently, with an open mind and playfulness. At this event we attempted to get out of our thoughts and use our senses instead, trying to taste resilience. We tasted semlas filled with a savoury, garlicky filling instead of sweet whipped cream to explore the unexpected. We ate alone in the darkness and together around a candle, sharing our ingredients to experience the benefits a community can mean. The aim of this event was to ground ourselves and focus on our feelings instead of our thoughts, by letting our bodies take the lead.
We found that this sensory way of engaging with the topic allowed participants to approach it in a lighter mood. The playfulness that the foods and unusual settings invited to the experience made it more approachable to discuss a complex topic. Involving the senses offered rich symbols and metaphors supporting the collective understanding. While the conversation opened up, requiring us to move away from causal logic and literal interpretation, we found each-other in the abstract through visual imagery. In that space, meaning was co-created, not always with clear answers, but with connection and the urge to share this among each other.
Shifting beredskap in time
Treating our words with care in our talks also shaped our perception of time. We realized that the word preparing is rooted in the future, implying a goal or issue. We kept running into the question: “Preparing for what?” During our community work, we never found a concrete answer, besides “for the uncertain”. In the village, preparing existed as a continuous act without a defined deadline.
The community used the Swedish term “beredskap” to describe their current focus, which they translated for us as “preparedness”. However, as we began using this term, we unknowingly developed very different associations.
While “resilience” means maintenance and has a permanent state in time, “preparedness” implies a rapid and high-intensity act preceding a certain disruptive event.
This disconnect between what was expressed in language and what was embodied in action made us reconsider our understanding of “beredskap” in the context of time. We questioned if preparedness is about movement or if it is a state of presence, an alertness, an attitude, a way of being, a sense of fearlessness. And if it does involve movement and action, what kind of action is that?
This shift in perspective turned our attention from future concerns to current needs. Focusing our project to the present felt like taking the worry and the pressure away. Re-planting the project to the present made “beredskap” feel more manageable.
A grounding answer to the alarming communication of the government
Noticing the alarming and stressful communication of the government issued booklet about beredskap, it became increasingly clear to us that we need to take part in reshaping that narrative. We wanted to create an answer to the government’s booklet, with a version that comes from the community, growing from the bottom-up, sparking a calm and empowering conversation about resilience.
Creating a Visseltofta version of the booklet, written and shaped with the community, became a central part of the project. With this booklet, we aimed to offer a more grounded and calm perspective both through the language and the visuals. At the same time, the booklet could serve as an inspiring example for other communities, or people who are living in Visseltofta, but have not joined their activities yet. In this booklet you can find writings from Visseltofta bo, and can read about our collective steps of the journey of becoming a more resilient community. The events are broken down to steps on how to recreate them. Rather than fueling worry about whatever the future may hold, we want to spark an empowering conversation, by focusing on what we can do now, taking concrete steps together.
The booklet speaks in a shared voice, co-authored and co-edited together with people from Visseltofta. As we now gently exited the project, we hope that in future iterations, even more voices from the community will find their way into its pages.
Byns Jordkällare
In previous meetings organized by Visseltofta Byalaget we talked a lot about how food systems were in the past. We heard stories about shared freezer rooms the village used to have, informal markets, like selling eggs to your neighbour and even sharing water by having a village well. This made us think about sharing resources and reaching back to habits that have been forgotten. Instead of coming up with new solutions, we want to look out for the potential in waking up these shared resources that have been asleep.
This led us to the idea of re-awakening an unused space, byns jordkällare (the viallge’s root cellar). By starting to think about collective food systems we can strengthen community ties. This three phase intervention started with a gathering where Visseltofta-bo, cleaned up the space with us and shared ideas for its possible uses. This helped us to get to know the space, connect with it and see the potential. The second gathering focused on creating a welcoming space. We had a long afternoon filled with the sound of drills, lively conversations and children playing and helping. By building and thinking together, the jordkällare got an inviting welcome sign, painted by Visseltofta bo, greeting all who decide to stop by. The space got “dressed up” with two shelving units, crafted from reused material, ready to begin their new life of storing food to share. The third gathering was a celebration organized by Byalaget, Wisseltofta Naturskola and us in collaboration. The event took place at the now awakened jordkällare, with enjoying food at the bonfire together, celebrating the first steps of the journey and looking ahead at the future directions Visseltofta is moving in, with relationships and projects growing forward.
Throughout this journey we took many steps, leading us to where we are now. Working with Visseltofta on the topic of local resilience, made the project very site specific and real to us. The project resulted in an enriching experience that made us grow together. We are grateful for the collaboration with Visseltofta, whose openness and engagement made this project possible. Visseltofta was the most nurturing and rich soil we could have imagined for this project to grow in. We enjoyed walking along with Visseltofta on their first steps towards resilience, and we wholeheartedly encourage them to continue along this journey.
