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(Text quoted from the original site of the The Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland.)

The Culture and Competence Board with Region Gävleborg has awarded the World Heritage Scholarship for 2021. It will go to artist Imke Rust, born in 1975 in Windhoek, Namibia, and now based in Oranienburg, Germany.

Imke Rust is an established artist and was educated at the University of South Africa, and other places. In her work she examines relationships between myth and reality, people and nature. She challenges common conceptions about what it’s like to be a person, and offers fresh perspectives. Imke Rust´s art is profoundly personal, and its aim is to create meaning through processes, narratives and materials, with a will to bridge gaps between cultures and continents, history and the present, and between people and nature.

It’s incredibly exciting that the World Heritage Scholarship has made its breakthrough this year, and that so many people from around the world have applied. With this year’s World Heritage Scholarship we are also connecting two fascinating world heritages on two continents through art. The very keynote of world heritage, says Magnus Svensson (C), Chairman of the Culture and Competence Board.

Motivation:

Farmers in Hälsingland built and decorated many beautiful farms during the mid-1800s. Thousands of years earlier, hunters and gatherers in Namibia meticulously decorated the surrounding landscape with rock carvings, showing scenes of animals, people and abstract patterns. This year’s World Heritage Scholarship holder, artist Imke Rust, grew up on a farm in Namibia, but has been living and working for some time in Oranienburg in Germany. She sees a direct link between the Hälsingegårdar World Heritage and Namibia’s first world heritage; Twyfelfontein.

The World Heritage Scholarship has made a real breakthrough this year. 101 applications were submitted in total – 42 national and 59 international. They have come from 34 different countries: Indonesia, Italy, Germany, Egypt, Spain, India, France, Portugal, Namibia, USA, Syria, Algeria, the Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, Austria, Finland, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Singapore, Mexico, Iceland, Hungary, Serbia, Cyprus, Nepal, Zambia, Greece, Poland, Iran, Japan and Sweden.

Find out more about the: Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland.