On September 16 at 5 p.m., on Kinnekulle, this mountain will be ritually unowned in the great quarry near Hällekis.
The ritual of unowning Kinnekulle is not about changing legal conditions. Rather, it seeks to summon forth the possibility of experiencing other ways of being human in relation to a mountain; together with all the people, plants, and animals who live, have lived, and will live here on Kinnekulle.
Perhaps we can also move together, in an effort to achieve a closer understanding of what it might entail to be a mountain among humans? And perhaps these parallel experiences can stand side by side with the prevailing narrative of Kinnekulle as a patchwork of ownership, where individuals, the church, forestry companies, venture capital, small private businesses, municipalities, and the state – and perhaps in the near future even international mining corporations – all claim a right to use it for their purposes.
What happens when we allow all these experiences and stories to stand next to one another: what kind of mountain will then emerge before us, and within us?
To organize the world on the basis of a primary idea of ownership is our society’s way of turning land, plants, animals, homes, and human labor into things – commodities that in turn can be exploited. But the ritual of unowning does not primarily address the question of who holds the right to exploit whatever has been subjected to commodification. Instead, it explores the possibility of animating the world together; of making it alive within us, and thereby making ourselves more alive in the world.
The work of creating a ritual of unowning in collaboration with the church ties us to the church’s at times complicated history and experience of ritual as a bearer of traditions and of power. Yet it also unfolds in relation to the Church of Sweden’s ongoing internal processes of rethinking its own forms of land ownership. In this way, the process poses questions not only to us as participants in the ritual, but also directs the very same questions back to the church itself.
Thank you to K.Skaraborg and Platåbergens UNESCO Geopark, for providing the context for our ceremony
Find the great quarry at Kinnekullle
UPDATE: Due to the forecasted weather the ceremony has been moved to Stenhyveln i Gössäter.
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A big thank you to all participants!
Photo: Johannes Regio