Wild Culture
Projects:
Past, Present & Future
Accidental Shepherd
in the making 2022-24
In the summer of 2022, Kristin Fredricksson was artist-shepherd in residence in Lithuania, close to the border with Belarus. Although remote, the story that unfolded was not pastorally idyllic. She was an illegal land occupier, armed with sheep; a squatter watched by the menacing cars of ‘landowners'. An intimate storytelling with objects and Foley sound.
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Scratch performance including the participatory 'Sheep Game' at Free Range Canterbury, Autumn 2022.
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2024 Update: Kristin is currently writing a novel which started with this material.
What Use is Art in a Climate Crisis?
Collaboration #1 between Kristin Fredricksson & Canterbury Repair Café
April 2023
A micro-commission from Free Range Canterbury. The audience built a sculptural, puppet model of a repaired society together, accompanied by musicians Sam Bailey, Paul Cheneour and others.
Totally Wired
Collaboration #2 between Kristin Fredricksson & Extinction Rebellion, April 2024
A commission from Free Range Canterbury. Climate Art Circuit Training to alleviate climate anxiety and climate grief. A collaborative participatory evening.
MEarth MOthers
Without Walls & Stockton International Riverside Festival SIRF Commission 2020/22
R & D supported by The Marlowe Canterbury and redevelopement in 2021 by the Arts Council of England.
Based on an idea by Kristin Fredricksson. MEarth MOthers are a trio of climate clowns - they erupt from the stomach of Mother Earth to storm the streets leaving a trail of plastic waste and tarred teddies. The world as we know it is going down and the MOthers are having a noxious knees-up! They laugh at us swinging between activism and hard-to-break habits, alone on our small, polluted island. Why do we consume so much, why are we wrecking the world and what are we going to do about it? MEarth MOthers have a physical, fungal response through comedy, music, puppetry, dance and shamanic ritual.
Leap of Love
ACE funded, Folkestone Puppetry Festival Commission 2018
A solo by Kristin Fredricksson, with music by Amy Howard. string of unusual puppet vignettes with live music and sound. This piece is an ode to mothers, daughters, grandmothers and wolves. She carries with her a tight bundle, so heavy it could pierce a hole through the Earth. So light she is afraid it might fly away. A dark lullaby echoes through her bones. Also performed at Free Range, Canterbury.
Tendering (You are a brick)
Installation by Kristin Fredricksson
Bread and Jam V, London 2016
University of Kent 2019
‘Tendering’ is a site responsive installation. 'Tendering' was my 2 year old daughter's name for for pretending. The piece is an exploration of self-image that is not limited to the self. It asks how much of the world, its creatures, spaces, things and events, can be incorporated into an expanded sense of self. Can we listen to the nonhuman in and through ourselves? The audience for this piece is invited to dance with the house in order to unravel a somatic puzzle, following a trail of words and tiny people. It was also presented at the University of Kent at the conference, 'Inside Out: participatory research and ethics' in 2019.
Cooking Ghosts
ACE funded, supported by The Point Eastleigh & South Street Reading 2012/13
Based on an idea by Kristin Fredricksson. Fusing visual story-telling, puppetry, archive film footage and a specially created score, this is an attempt to understand the past and a woman who felt she had no choice but to leave her family. A harrowing and hilarious piece exploring childhood freedom, love, memory and the rippling effects of losing a mother from a child's perspective. Tenderness and laughter turns to sadness and confusion as the children abruptly lose their innocence. ACE funded.
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'HAUNTING NEW SHOW...HEARTFELT, STARTLING AND POWERFUL'
**** Time Out
Everything Must Go
Total Theatre Award & Arches Brick Award 2009
Intended to be staged as a father/daughter duo, innovative performer Kristin Fredricksson beautifully pays tribute to her late father, Karl, using cinefilm, clowning, dance, puppetry and hurdling.
UK and European tour including The Barbican, London and Ruhrfestspiele, Germany.
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'FUNNY, MOVING AND UNIQUE'
**** The Times
'KARL'S LIFE STORY IS A FANTASTICALLY WILD ONE'
***** Time Out
'UTTERLY REMARKABLE...RAW, TOUCHING' **** The List
Senior Moments
Theatre Royal Margate
Big Dance
Forest Fringe 2010
A collaboration by Kristin Fredricksson & Rob Vesty. A pop-up performance piece made by a spontaneously collected group of people for a one-off event which is live-choreographed (with no or little rehearsal). Our project ran three times. First with Rodney Manderson and Bob Crowley at the Margate Theatre Royal, in January 2010. Second with Mary Rourke, Jane Grayson, Lena Hartley, Maggie Kirby-Barr, Janet Shapiro and Gretel Hinrickssen at Jacksons Lane, London in July 2010 as part of Big Dance. Â Third with Kittie and Raga at Forest Fringe, Edinburgh in August 2010. Â All participants were aged 65 or over.
Le Mètre
La Nef - Manufacture d'Utopies, Pantin (France)Â 2008/9
A solo performance/installation by Kristin Fredricksson about measurement, a woman and her maître/mètre, the speed of light and the self as guru. Supported by and developed at La Nef Pantin, with the complicity of Jean-Louis Heckel.