Oscar Ström - Portfolio

7. Community

A long line of about twenty people walks across a harvested, golden stubble field under a pale sky.
Summer School Maříž 2025, the walk across the fields. Photograph: Oscar Ström.

Two communities and collectives that I have been a part of over the years. I am currently a team member of Leštnice z.s., a multidisciplinary artist collective that operates mostly in the village of Maříž in South Bohemia, Czech Republic. Before that I was a founding member of Louhos, a studio, maker space and collective in Helsinki, Finland.

Leštnice

Maříž, Czech Republic

Leštnice z.s. is a non-profit collective based in Maříž, a small village on the Czech border with Austria. It is named after a neighbouring village that was destroyed along the Iron Curtain and has been taken back by nature since. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, artists from Prague started a summer school in this area, inviting artists from various disciplines to South Bohemia, and ran it for eleven years. Leštnice is the next generation, carrying on the legacy of the original summer school and has carried it on since 2019: a ten day summer school every other year, a 22 day residency in the years between, a publication from each, a research archive and many projects in between.

I came to the summer school as a participant in 2023 and have stayed with the collective ever since. In 2025 I became an official member of the collective, and I am now working on a larger three year project with the team by developing a streaming platform and a new and expanded research archive, as paid freelance work.

lestnice.org

Maříž from above in late summer: a pond, a chapel, a few red roofs among trees, and fields around them.
Maříž from above, August 2024.

2026

Residency

Habitat Broadcast: Exploring Rural Frequencies, Part I

When
26 July to 16 August 2026
Where
Maříž
My part
Organiser

Habitat Broadcast is a three year project for České Budějovice European Capital of Culture 2028, to collect and broadcast stories, sounds and music from rural places. Part I was a 22 day residency in Maříž for musicians, sound artists and radio makers, who played, recorded and told stories with the village and brought back the Habitat Ensemble, the collective's own music project. Sentieri in Abruzzo and Robida are partners in this three year project.

As a member of the collective I helped plan and organise the residency. The collective secured funding for all three years from the European Capital of Culture. For the broadcasts I am currently setting up our own streaming platform on a private VPS, where every live stream is saved as a replay, and I am building the research archive and the new Leštnice website. The music and sounds that were recorded during the residency are currently being edited and processed and will be released alongside the other material from the Habitat Broadcast project in 2028.

Sentieri, my case studyČeské Budějovice 2028

In the barn, a woman with long dark hair reads from a handwritten notebook into a microphone. Behind her a saxophonist and two drummers in caps.
Reading into the microphone in the barn, 12 August 2026.
A concert on a stage behind grasses and paper streamers: a woman at a microphone, another with an oud, a man in an orange cap singing.
The concert on 14 August 2026.
A wide barn with a stage of hay bales. People sit and kneel on rugs among loudspeakers and cables, playing and recording.
Recording on the barn stage. Photograph: Barbora Gabova.
Close up in the barn: a woman holds a large striped gourd to a microphone, a man kneels with a microphone, another plays a bass.
In the barn, close. Photograph: Barbora Gabova.
The open call poster for Habitat Broadcast, Part I: scanned grasses, a feather, a small brass camel and sun medallions on white.
The open call poster.

2025 to 2026

Publication

Spiritual Cards and Rehearsing in Practice

When
Released 18 April and 6 June 2026
Where
Leipzig and Prague
My part
Concept and art direction alongside Marty Schlichter

The publication from the 2025 summer school: a deck of playing cards in four colours with custom suits that emerged from themes that were present during the summer school. Alongside the cards there is a publication, a red book of texts and photographs, and a slipcase that holds them. Marty Schlichter and I came up with the concept and art directed it, Charline Gdalia and Františka Iblová made the design and layout.

It was released at Hitness Club in Leipzig on 18 April 2026, on an evening that closed with the last rehearsal of the summer school, and again at Točna Dlabačov in Prague on 6 June 2026.

From above on white: fanned red and yellow cards, a red booklet, the slipcase with red drawing, and fanned green and purple cards.
Photograph: Giulia Morlando.
The set on a white table: the red book standing open, a card in the white slipcase printed with red drawing, and a deck in a paper band.
Photograph: Giulia Morlando.
A hand fans a deck of yellow, purple, green and red cards over the red book.
Photograph: Giulia Morlando.
Close up: a purple two with a red line drawing of a building, card backs in a grid of coloured squares, a green two with a yellow drawing.
Photograph: Giulia Morlando.
Hands hold the book open at a full page black and white photograph of a horned figure beside a page of text.
Photograph: Giulia Morlando.
The poster for the release at Hitness Club, Leipzig, 18 April 2026: pink ground with green brush marks.
The release in Leipzig.

2025

Summer school

Summer School Maříž 2025, Speculative Experiment and Rehearsal in Practice

When
13 to 24 August 2025
Where
Maříž
My part
Associate organiser, photographer

Ten days focusing on the idea of rehearsal, not as preparation for something finished but as a way of being together and embracing the process of creation. Artists, designers and performers made sound, textiles, walks and temporary structures with the village as their stage, and it ended in a public evening showcase in Maříž. Several films were also made during the summer school with our project partners Hitness Club, a multi-media collective in Leipzig, Germany.

I was in the Leštnice team that year in the role of an associate, and took the photographs.

At dusk a wooden structure hung with strips of fabric burns at the edge of a pond, reflected in the water, with a costumed figure beside it.
The last evening at the pond. Photograph: Oscar Ström.
A group movement exercise on grass: barefoot people bend and turn, blurred by their motion.
Photograph: Oscar Ström.
Two people paint a tall red and blue wooden panel at dusk in front of the Maringotka kitchen shelter.
Photograph: Oscar Ström.
People in long grass by a stone wall. A woman weaves grass stems in front, a man holds a tall carved stick.
Photograph: Oscar Ström.
The 2025 open call poster: pale green, black line drawing and orange marks, the word REHEARSAL in red capitals.
The open call poster.

2023 to 2024

Publication

Spiritual Cooking and Recipes in Practice

When
Released 4 May 2024
Where
Kafkárna, Prague
My part
Photographs, feedback before print, and help at the release

The book from the 2023 summer school: a cookbook that is also a record of the ten days, with the recipes cooked for about forty people, the stories told at the table, maps of where the food was foraged, and drawings to weave it all together. 200 pages on recycled paper, in an edition of 100 with hand embroidered covers. It sold out.

I was not in the team that made the design and the layout. Concept, editing and texts are by Jack Laing Aiken, Giulia Morlando and Isabel Meldner, and layout and design by Isabel Meldner. I was a participant in the summer school it came from, many of the photographs in it are mine, I was part of the feedback team that went through it before it was printed, and I helped at the release at Kafkárna, a hundred year old sculpture studio that is now the Centre for Arts and Ecology of UMPRUM, the art academy in Prague.

Kafkárna, UMPRUM

The finished book, page by page.
Copies of Spiritual Cooking with red and pale pink covers, stacked on logs.
The book cover was printed in three different colours.
An open book on a wooden table showing a hand drawn map with foraged plants marked, next to photographs of mirabelles and a garden.
The foraging map of Maříž.
A pink poster announcing the book release and banquet at Kafkárna on 4 May 2024, with a photograph of people reading on a blanket.
The poster for the release.

2023

Summer school

Summer School Maříž 2023, Spiritual Experiment and Collective Habitat in Practice

When
16 to 27 August 2023
Where
Maříž, then Berlin
My part
Participant, photographer

My first summer in Maříž. Ten days on social architecture, with workshops in storytelling by the Leštnice team, in sound and music by Marius Houschyar and Karel Babuljak, and in building as a social process by MAK! Studio. Two months later we met again at Floating University Berlin for an exhibition and showcase of the sonic cooking concept that was developed during the summer school.

All of the photographs below are mine, taken at summer school 2023.

Black and white film photograph, double exposed: an arched shelter in a field of hay beside a wooden shed, grasses laid over the sky.
Analogue double exposure of the pastures outside of Maříž.
Black and white: in the kitchen shelter a woman leans over an open notebook on the counter while a man with a headlamp looks at the camera.
Inside the Maringotka.
Black and white, from above: tattooed hands play a small synthesizer on a table crowded with effect pedals, a microphone and cables.
Marius Houschyar live.
Black and white: a man in a cap and round glasses stands with a hand on a timber frame under a translucent roof, others at work behind him.
DIY mobile kitchen that was built during the summer school.
Two people walk down a wet lane, one under a parasol, printed as a negative so the road is dark and the sky black.
A negative from a walk to Austria.
Printed as a negative: two people push two wheeled walls of translucent sheeting across a field.
Mobile kitchen being transported to the fallen village of Leštnice.
A dark cloud over a treeline, printed as a negative so the trees are white.
A negative of a coming storm cloud.
Two people at a mixing desk and keyboards, in a black and white double exposure.
Marius Houschyar live.
In colour, from above: a woman carries a frame of woven branches hung with ribbons, leaves and a red box along a road.
Mobile snack bar that was constructed during the summer school.
A colour double exposure: a woman in a white dress among sunflowers and garden plants, with musicians and a painted wooden hut behind her.
Final event of the summer school.
In colour: a man in a long blue robe and a cap stands in a ploughed field, holding a camera at his waist.
Philip Chemayel documenting the final event.
A pale purple poster for Summer School Maříž 2023 meets Floating University Berlin, with handwritten programme lines.
Floating University Berlin, 14 October 2023.

Louhos

Helsinki, 2021 to 2024

Founding member

A collective in Helsinki that I helped found. For three years we ran infrastructure that members could use, including a sewing station for fashion designers, photography station for studio photoshoots and music station that featured several instruments as well as turntables for DJing on vinyl. The collective received funding from the Finnish Cultural Fund and the City of Helsinki, but also relied on a monthly membership fee.

During these years I organised events and workshops in photography, music making and DJing. I also actively used the studio and maker space for various personal and collective projects I was working on at the time.

Nine people sitting and standing together in a wallpapered room beside a mannequin, in black and white.
Louhos members.
Two industrial sewing machines on work tables, a green office chair and a dress form in a white garment, in a white room.
The sewing station.
A white paper backdrop rolled down from the wall onto the floor, with two softboxes and a round reflector.
The photography station.
Turntables, a mixer and two speakers on a shelf of records, with a keyboard behind them and a black cloth on the wall.
The music station.
Printed as a negative: a person in a cap and headphones plays records under the wooden roof of a pavilion at night.
Louhos Midsummer party.
A silhouette with both hands raised against pink light and smoke.
Louhos Open Air party.
The word Louhos drawn as thick black brush letters arranged in a circle.
The wordmark.