The International Encounters of Community and Environmental Sociology will take place this year again in the rural Sweden, on a farm in Kvarntorp in the outskirts of Hölö in Södertälje Municipality, Stockholm County from the 25th through the 28th of August. This meeting will serve as a site for participants to exchange and share their experiences and to discuss the future of independent cultural frameworks.

After a two-years long covid brake, the third edition of International Encounters of Community and Environmental Sociology, New Forms of Contemplation for a New Society, continues to develop, as in the previous editions, as an interdisciplinary space of conversation on how to create new approaches in cultural policies based on the models of the auto-sustainable infrastructures. We have chosen Järna surroundings as the base of the IECES because we view the area as an inspiring place where one can visualize the cooperative development of the neighbourhood in helping to organize, enhance, and strengthen the participation of the community. The focus of the event’s program will consist of non-activities, experiences, and participation in the local and social milieu of Järna, Hölö and its surroundings.
For this third edition of International Encounters we have selected a group of international experts specializing in the field of art and culture whose labor is based in the independent cultural framework. Our participants range from artists, thinkers, academics, curators, composers, and architects. The project hopes to bridge the local and the international through creating a place for meeting and conversation between participants in the symposium and members of the local community. International Encounters creates an opportunity for those involved to share their experiences related to the development of art and cultural projects that are integrated in community and environmental sociology with voices represented both from Järna, Hölö and a larger international community.
The goal of the project is to develop in both the public and private sphere a collective thought or aim that will serve as an important tool in improving the relationship between sustainable development and social integration with the quality of culture. In fact, International Encounters views the relationship between culture and sustainable development an imperative. Bringing various participants together to discuss this topic will serve to create a larger transnational discourse on the imperative to merge cultural thought, sustainable development, and social integration.
The project channels the collective intelligence and viewpoints of each participant and therefore will help to develop and improve the quality of art and culture by contrasting and channeling each participants unique ideas and perspectives.
The project aims to create and foster a cultural and artistic ecosystem with a very active link with the non-state public culture. In this ecosystem the various actors are engaged in a social system outside of the practice of consumption. More specifically, we want to reflect on the systematic dimensions of building a sustainable culture in communities where societies can develop in a direction towards a post-human perspective and a meeting place for the exchange of experiences of participants, whose objective will be to consider the future of this great independent cultural framework.
Producing this event can be viewed in tandem with several of our previous projects where we consider similar themes. For example, our latest work was the creation of a nonprofit organization whose work focuses on promoting research in the sciences and humanities that strives to improve the quality of interaction of all living beings belonging to the same social ecosystem.
This gathering will allow participants to share projects, meet potential collaborators, and find the inspiration to work collectively to consolidate a base for a future network of collaborations between the participating actors and the inhabitants belonging to the local community. 

The general area of Järna is really rich when it comes to nature, culture, arts, biodynamic farming and more. It is a multicultural and diverse place. Järna is the center of the  Anthroposophical movement in Sweden. It has a number of Waldorf schools and a beautiful Cultural centre located in the area of Ytterjärna, where in the forest one can find one of James Turrell’s permanent installations. 

Where Do You Find Us

Kvarntorp is located between the small towns of Järna and Hölö it belongs to the municipality of Södertälje and it is one of the very last territories of Stockholms Län, bordering with Sörmland. Kvarntorp is only 8 kilometres away from Järna, which is connected to Stockholm with the commuter train (50 min with regular SL ticket) and well as busses to Södertälje and Gnesta were one can reach the long distance train. If you arrive to Arlanda, the commuter train will bring you to Järna in under 1.5 hours with frequent trips for the standard airport fee. Kvarntorp is only 45 kilometres or half an hour away from Skavsta airport, however the connection between the airport and Kvarntorp is not great unless one drives.