science

Myvillages

Myvillages is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Myvillages rather than just read about it. In short: Myvillages is an international collective, founded in 2003 by artists Kathrin Böhm (UK/DE), Wapke Feenstra (NL) and Antje Schiffers (DE). Myvillages focuses on the rural as a place for cultural production and investigates the relationship between the countryside and the city, challenging and criticising the urban as the dominant cultural sphere.

Key takeaways

Myvillages belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Myvillages to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Myvillages from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Myvillages is an international collective, founded in 2003 by artists Kathrin Böhm (UK/DE), Wapke Feenstra (NL) and Antje Schiffers (DE). Myvillages focuses on the rural as a place for cultural production and investigates the relationship between the countryside and the city, challenging and criticising the urban as the dominant cultural sphere.

Myvillages addresses the rural, but does not define it. They pay attention to its peculiarities, and what remains as rural, be it a practice, a mindset or a place. The ‘rural’ can manifest itself in the countryside and the city; the movement of rural knowledge and identities is connected to migration and the urbanisation of societies. Myvillages, in this way, also addresses the major ecological and economical problems of today, where a lot can be learned from the countryside. The three founders of Myvillages all come from a rural background. They are originally from small villages, which they left to study art in cities, to then stay in urban environments where the spaces for art making are more obvious. In 2001 they returned to their home villages to see and think them as places to work as artists, and slowly and in collaboration with many others created a network and critical thinking for a new way of making art around the rural. Myvillages is registered as STICHTING INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION myvillages.org, in the Netherlands.

Projects (selection) Myvillages organises and participates in co-operative projects in various villages and rural landscapes around the world, with a focus on Europe. Many of the projects are trans-local and international, and stay close to the everyday practices in the places where they are organised: for instance a village shop, community lunches, walking across the fields, or a film screening in a village hall. In general, the collective’s projects range from small-scale informal presentations to long-term collaborative research projects and permanent new cultural infrastructures.

I Like Being a Farmer (2000–), an ongoing bartering project in which farmers film their everyday work in return for an oil painting. The Farm Drawings (2003–), a collection of drawings made during workshops, seminars and village hall meetings worldwide, where individuals sketch their memory of what a farm looks like. Bibliobox (2005–2015), a mobile archive with documents about rural contemporary art practices. The International Village Shop (2006–2023), a network of temporary shops in which goods are produced collectively with rural communities, and then traded across Myvillages’ rural and art world networks. Former Farmland (2008–09), which makes the agricultural history of urban areas visible through tours, walks, drawing and story-telling.

The Pantry Project (2011), in which food from 80 producers and growers in and around Berlin was collected and preserved during a year, to make a real pantry in the exhibition to feed a festival at the House of World Cultures. Farmers and Ranchers (2012–2015), which brought together young cattle farmers from Friesland (NL) and Colorado (US) to experience and learn from each other's context in times of climate change. Company Drinks (2014–) began as Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks, an art project, exploring community making and commoning through collective and seasonal drinks production at the edge of Greater London. International Village Show (2015–16), a two year long exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Leipzig. Boerenzij – The Rural Side (2018–19), a project about existing but invisible rural cultures of traditional and migrant communities in South Rotterdam. The Rural School of Economics (2021–) grew out of the Eco Nomadic School (2011–18) and is a multi-lingual travelling class-room that connects localised knowledge through informal and inter-generational learning.

Reception Projects by Myvillages have been presented and exhibited internationally, at events and venues including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2008), Ars Electronica Festival, Linz (2008), Tate Britain, London (2010), TENT (nl), Rotterdam (2011), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2011), Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (2014), Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2015), Parco d'Arte Vivente (it), Turin (2015), Museum for Contemporary Art (GFZK) (de), Leipzig (2015–16), Ludwig Múzeum, Budapest (hu) (2018), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019), Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2019), and Kunsthalle Bratislava (2021). Keynote presentations by Myvillages include the 2015 Re-Imagining Rurality Symposium at Westminster University. Artefacts, objects and documentation resulting from the activities of Myvillages are included in public and museum collections, including Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Arts Maebashi Museum Collection, Maebashi; Kunstmuseum Thurgau; Kunstverein Springhornhof, Heiligendorf; Lawson Park Collection, Grizedale Arts; Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; PAV, Turino; and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.

Grants and awards Myvillages has received grants and support from various cultural funders, including Erasmus+ EU; the European Cultural Foundation, NL; Mondriaan Fund NL; Sigrid Rausing Trust UK; Allianz Stiftung DE; and Kulturstiftung des Bundes DE. In 2014 Myvillages received the Create Art Award UK.

Publications and films

Publications by Myvillages (selection)

Films (selection) Village Produce Films, an archive of films on the making of new goods for the International Village Shop, 2008 – ongoing Farmers & Ranchers: Growing Up in Changing Landscapes, 26min, 2014 Vorratskammer / Pantry, with Martin König, 45 min, 2012 Foreign Pickers, 23 min, 2016

External links Myvillages – official website International Village Shop Company Drinks Former Farmland Bibliobox Ich bin gerne Bauer International Village Shop Vorratskammer Farmers and ranchers International Village Show Boerenzij

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Myvillages

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Myvillages claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Myvillages before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Myvillages ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Myvillages

In research: Myvillages appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Myvillages in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Myvillages is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics International artist groups and collectives, Rural culture, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Myvillages outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Myvillages in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Myvillages means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Myvillages out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Myvillages in simple terms?

Why does Myvillages matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Myvillages?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Myvillages.