What interests you about this project?
I am motivated to help imagine and find ways towards a future landscape that is healthy and sustaining for humans, more-than-humans and the natural world.
My artist practice begins with walking the landscape to explore places. Having lived my earlier life in cities, then later, moving to the relatively sparsely populated county of Shropshire, I have become more and more interested in the rural landscape and its history. History is etched into the landscape in its topography, place names, field names, rivers and streams, its geology, ecology, and in the built environment. It is impossible to ignore the fact that this is mostly an industrial landscape dominated by farming and food production; often inconsistent with images of the countryside portrayed in media focusing on national parks and other beautiful places with seemingly abundant wildlife.
I certainly find plenty of wonderful places where you can see a close connection between local communities, farmers and wildlife; many landowners are adapting farming methods to encourage regeneration of woodlands, wetlands and other habitats. There is a thriving network of local good quality food growers and producers. But I have also become very much aware of a quietening of bird song and insect life, and difficulties in accessing paths. I scramble through thick vegetation in fields ploughed right up to brutalised hedges or clamber over barbed wire and broken stiles in order to follow a public right of way. No access and private land signs proliferate.
The historic Enclosures and mechanisation of rural trades that drove my ancestors and many other thousands of rural workers into the mills and factories of emerging cities, continue to haunt the landscape at a time when Right to Roam and Right to Grow campaigns are gaining public support.
I can feel both an uneasy tension and a hopeful resurgence in the rural landscape. Maybe art can bring people together to explore some of these issues creatively and build a better understanding.
Why is the subject relevant?
AH: Food production and looking after our natural environment affect the daily needs and future survival of everyone on the planet. So how land is used in balance with other demands such as housing, energy and transport, must surely be a critical concern. And yet the subject is not high on the political agenda. The quality of debate about how we farm the landscape is often deeply divided, reduced to conflicting, entrenched views, influenced by issues including economic need, food security, climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, culture, traditions, and animal welfare, to name just a few.
Meanwhile, farmers struggle on facing many challenges threatening their economic survival: post-Brexit changes to subsidy payments, large retailer contracts, global market prices, labour shortages, increasing fuel and energy prices, droughts, floods and so on. But farming is more than just a job, it is a way of life that affects the whole community and their natural environment. Like with everything else, farmers are not all the same, so we are keen for the Landing project to reveal some of the nuances in the real stories of people trying to find a way through a time of huge change.
What is exciting about this collaboration of artists?
AH: From our earliest conversations, it was obvious that we shared many values, beliefs and interests.
It was fascinating to hear about Molly’s unique perspective as a farmer with a family heritage rooted in self-sufficiency and the intimacy of working in harmony with the land. This is a pivotal time for Molly and partner Olly, a specialist in carbon management, as they plan the future for the farm they have recently settled into, and for the nearby agro-forestry research site at Templefields.
It will be brilliant opportunity to share ideas, learn new skills, experiment in a shared space and also share the burden of leading a multi-faceted project with many different partners involved.
What will be the challenges and opportunities for working on farms?
AH: What I know about farmers is that they are busy, hardworking, practical people, often needing to spend many hours working alone or with limited resources in tough conditions to produce outputs from the land which they are totally reliant on for their livelihood. I expect the prospect of an artist working on their farm may not immediately offer obvious benefits to the farmer and might just be seen as an unwanted distraction.
What I have found in working with other disciplines is that through conversation and artistic responses, I have been able to share new, sometimes surprising, perspectives that have the potential to inform future thinking. This can take time, and I hope that we can build confidence, ask questions and investigate farming activities in some detail.
Artists and farmers share a necessary ability to improvise, work with limited resources, respond to unplanned or uncertain events and so this might be one focus for our research.
What do you hope the project will achieve?
AH: This is a huge subject to explore but I hope we can use art to create spaces for diverse voices to engage and consider the future of our landscape – to find common ground. Maybe we can shed new light on farming practices, and put them into context with the past and possible futures.
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