We would like to give a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to visit the exhibition “forråd forråd forråd” at Fabrikken in Copenhagen. It was a truly fantastic evening and wonderful to see so many people.

Opening speech by Principal Caroline Høgsbro: FORRÅD FORRÅD FORRÅD Welcome to Krabbesholm’s autumn exhibition. We have gathered into piles. We have produced. We have fermented knowledge and let ideas mature. We have put labels on things and hoped they will last. We have placed them where we can find them again. We have shown care and imagined a future where we are needed. We, the Krabbesholmers, who approach creation with action and not always words. We, who may be allowed to live life creatively – that is, defining the physical future of others in the world.

The word forråd is, at first, harmless. Humans are collectors. Winter is coming soon. We have been asked by the Danish Emergency Management Agency to prepare for a potential three-day power outage. Should we have water in the basement, or is the spring in the forest enough? And which danger are we responding to?

Forråd is a reaction to the most unbearable expression of our time: spiritual armament. Matthias Tesfaye has sparked major debate with this phrase, and many have strong opinions. Should we go along with it? And does it make us stronger or just less afraid? I wish we would discuss that distinction more. I feel immense discomfort with this expression. If anything is to arm us, it must be hard and resilient. Spirit usually only is, if many unite in agreement. It smells of dogma and fundamentalism. Even nationalism. The individual’s spirit may be resilient, capable of recovering after an attack. But a spiritual armor must be made of something unyielding, something non-negotiable. Spirit must never become that.

Armament is something one does with things that can rust – weapons, tanks, drones. But love does not rust. Art does not rust either. And any attempt to prep matters of the soul ends badly. You cannot collect love into a pile, put it on a shelf, and cut small pieces when winter grows long and cold. I cannot store the innermost meaning of art in a jam jar with a picking date and cooking time. Life strikes when it strikes, no matter what.

Art and spirit do not belong in storage – they belong in the world. That is why we have brought our storage here today. To show it. To animate it. For you.

In Krabbesholm’s exhibition, everything we love is gathered, showing how what we touch, store, and share becomes a living common forråd of works and actions. A forråd that almost mysteriously stands in logical relation to itself. Themes arise, tracing fine and unpredictable paths across the 30-meter-long wall.

The exhibition should not be understood as a static container, but as a porous and living organism where processes continue, exchange, and change. A storage must be used – otherwise it must be thrown out. It is crucial that the storage is alive: materials are used, and new ones added. A stock of food that is not eaten rots. A collection that is not exhibited is dead social capital.

In Krabbesholm’s forråd, we preserve to protect, store to share, and let knowledge ferment. We manage a circulating material consumption where materials, technologies, and humans participate in a mutual cycle of use, storage, and reuse.

Krabbesholm shows in forråd forråd forråd both informal and care-based practices: sorting, sharing, storage, and communal resources. Forråd here is not private property but common infrastructure – a way of thinking about economy as relation rather than transaction. Our forråd is archive, organism, and community: a space where care, knowledge, and matter continue to ferment.

All of this also happens in a desperate attempt to hold onto what we must eventually let go: the living forråd of people, their stories, humor, and relationships. The thousand small plateaus that make up half a year at the folk high school. Everything the mind desperately tries to hold onto, so it is not lost – so we do not forget to date it and put it somewhere we can find it again.

We do not ask you to arm up or down. We ask you to remember that the best defense against a hopeless future is – and will remain – imagination, the ability to love, the ability to create, and most importantly: community.

Forråd is a tribute. To peace. To winter. To friendships. To art.