. . . art on farms and open studio events

 

benefits

Not all of these projects would necessarily attract investment from Arts Council England, South West or other agencies. The quality of the art work produced and the experience on offer is one that needs to be considered but the officers at the Arts Council will be able to advise here.

The benefits, however, can be substantial.

• the farmer gets an additional income stream
• the artist gets affordable accommodation in the heart of an inspiring landscape
• the community gets an educational resource on its doorstep
• training opportunities can be offered, contributing transferable skills into the local workforce
• art farms become visitor attractions, even when access is limited to certain weekends or weeks of the year (for more details see open studios below), bringing additional visitors and their spend into the area

All of which increases the opportunities for artists and visitors to engage with more people, helping them to see and express and re-connect with the landscape.

 

case study:  Art Farm Project

In 2000 Peter and Suzanne Redstone reluctantly decided that the dairy herd they had nurtured at Middle Rocombe Farm in South Devon for over 25 years had become too small to be economical. The cows were sold to a nearby organic dairy farm, leaving many buildings without a use.

Three years later in September 2003 the Art Farm Project was officially launched. This artist-led initiative used the whole farm as a gallery space to present the work of over 40 local artists over nine days.

In its second year the project attracted over 3,000 visitors and generated £10,000 in sales. While the work exhibited at the farm had some connection to its rural setting, the artists decided that the next event, planned for June 2006, should include only work created in direct response to the farm, its setting and the seasons.

This innovative approach, engaging artists to respond to a specific location, to re-connect with the landscape around the farm, succeeded in attracting a significant number of investors, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and Arts Council England, South West.

The resulting work from the 27 artists selected to participate inevitably included creative responses to current issues affecting agriculture. Themes included the decline of the dairy farm in the UK, the power of the supermarkets and climate change. But the artists also

reflected the micro-environment of the farm itself, including the use of homegrown clay to create pigments for paints. All things designed to bring practitioner and viewer that much closer to the land, stimulating debate and new understanding.

The 2006 event ran for 16 days attracting 3,288 people, 417 of whom were students from nine schools, one home school network and two learning disabled groups. Income from merchandise, including locally produced food, totalled £7,500 while £4,000 was generated in sales of
art work.

Not that statistics can ever tell the whole story. But the words of some of the artists, reflecting on their ten months at Rocombe, may help to illustrate the value of the creative response:

"Along the way we have discovered that animals are a swine to photograph... and that each plastic hay bale wrapper comprises over 200 feet of black cling film"

"the sense of absence I feel walking through farm buildings that retain names fixed by long and continued use: the Milking Parlour, the Cow Shed, the Slurry Stone, the Shippen"

 

case study:  Aune Head Arts - Focus on Farmers (2003-05)

Aune Head Arts in Devon is a rural arts organisation that works with artists and local communities on projects about contemporary life in the Dartmoor National Park. It aims to empower people to find new ways of looking at their environment using contemporary arts as the primary medium.

The Focus on Farmers project was developed in direct response to a range of issues facing hill farmers in the aftermath of the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001. As part of the challenge to re-open and revitalise the countryside, the project aimed to use contemporary artforms to promote both Dartmoor and Exmoor as living landscapes, actively shaped and maintained by farmers and users of the moors.

Four experienced (or lead) artists and four apprentice artists were recruited and dispatched in pairs to spend a total of 30 days living and working on four hill farms as part of the farming family over a nine month period. Three of the farms were on Dartmoor, the fourth on Exmoor.

The brief for the artists was non-prescriptive. The lead artists were to produce work in response to the issues involved and to give some mentoring to the apprentices. The apprentices could produce finished work if they chose but were only expected to explore their experiences through various media.

In the end, however, 27 discrete projects were completed, including sets of photographs, sound maps, poems, weavings, sculptures, DVDs, books and films. A final exhibition of work toured throughout the south west and was seen by nearly 50,000 people.3

Subsequently Aunehead Arts have commissioned a book, bringing together images with a collection of essays reflecting the issues explored, for publication by early 2007. Further projects have also been established including Women in Farming, which explores farms on Dartmoor run exclusively by women farmers.

 

case study: open studios

Over the past decade open studio events have become a region-wide phenomena.

These are well-organised, annual or biennial countywide events. They succeed in attracting thousands of visitors who explore the countryside in search of studios in isolated places they never normally see.

There is untapped potential here for partnership working between the region’s protected landscapes and open studio organisations. Art weeks can and do provide ideal opportunities to promote the value of the landscape and to re-connect with it, particularly through the range of workshops, classes and events that are run as part of the art week programme.

Connections to initiatives like Dorset AONB’s Pride of Place, assisting communities to take a detailed look at their immediate environment, may be appropriate for future partnership working.