A reimagined (farmers’) almanac as a translation object
Weronika Kozak, Liesbeth Huybrechts
(Flemish) farmers find themselves in a state of suspension, islands afloat in turbulent sea. Ecosocial transitions, such as water transformations, are at a standstill, dialogue between environmentalists and farmers suspended. On the other hand, volatility, accelerated by climatic and legal uncertainty, may suspend anthropocentric language(s), unearthing more hospitable ones. Might suspending linearity and goal-orientedness in transitions bring to light true leakiness - not so much making room for water, but be(com)ing fluid? When visiting farms, I suspend different languages I speak; silence, rhythm, gestures, orchards, and dew reverberate. Ensuing momentary suspensions and misunderstandings during fieldwork, correspondences are built. Embracing suspensions warrants disorientation, accumulating meanings rather than predefining them. Horizon-less states attune to reading between the lines, looking for metaphors and symbols, suspending linear, clear-cut, and anthropocentric languages, leading towards leakiness - being rooted and afloat - and more-than-human semiotics - interspecies co-creation of meaning. Understanding what apples, cherry trees, beech bark, humidity, frost, could translate to, may suspend exploitative understandings and reframe linearity of transitions. Could this suspension turn farmers into more-than-human translators? I am gathering suspension, accumulating sediment - everyday silt, ambiguous meanings, seemingly unspectacular residue - into a reimagined farmers’ almanac. It could serve as a tool of and for suspension - reframing temporalities, rewriting narratives, creating an ecosystem of more-than-human entanglements, and sparking fluid ways of being. It could be a translating device, a suspended patchwork constantly tended to, encompassing gestures, idioms, smell of mud, or the colour of grapes at 5 during late October harvest, gathering languages of facing uncertainty, and sparking unexpected alliances. Suspending academic frameworks through straying rather than asking straightforward questions attunes research to the shapeshifting reality of polycrisis and makes it winding, stumbling, and errant. Within Forum Artistic Research, I will discuss my PhD research within agricultural contexts subject to ecosocial transitions through presentation of a translation object I designed - a reimagined farmers’ almanac. The almanac hopes to gather situated and everyday insights on living in uncertainty to rethink transitions.