Keuruu ekokyla lotta dj iss22

KEURUU EKOKYLA

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LOTTA DJUPSUND

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the drouth

the drouth

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the drouth

the drouth

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These are pieces of a small document made during one visit to the eco-village of Keuruu (Keuruun ekokylä), central Finland. It is a farm based on principles of ecology and sustainable development, and a home for around 30 people. The community is to some degree self-sufficient, aiming to slowly increase and develop its production of eg. food and electricity.

I have tried to show you bits of this reality, and I have tried to do this, in a manner of speaking, by standing straight at the subject – hopefully the pictures will show what I mean by that. The romanticising, however much of it can be seen, seems to need some justification. It’s part a visual choice – perhaps a simple and lazy one – but equally as much it is there to provoke answers. Because, as I see it, the old question still stands unanswered. If a group of people – here, a handful of Finns in a rural and, tip-toeing around this word, remote setting – base their lives on a foundation of ecological sustainability and shared property, power and liability, what effect can it possibly have? When, and through which process, does a local reality become a global utopia?

www.keuruunekokyla.fi

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the drouth