The Crisis in Agriculture Is a Crisis of Culture

Littoral is interested in opening up new critical territory for contemporary art practice in the context of agricultural and rural change. We support organizations and artists interested in working on arts projects to do with agriculture, farming and other rural issues.

Critics Roger Scruton and John Berger have pointed to the crisis in agriculture as evidence of a deeper crisis of culture, involving issues of national identity, cultural diversity, public health, animal welfare and bioethics and public access to the countryside. Artists have always sought to work at the critical edges of culture in the unfixed margins of society, as a suitable place from which to re-image society, environment and culture. Agricultural change and the crisis in farming are important new areas for cultural practice and research, and provide a focus for future cultural debate, critical art practice and aesthetic discourse.

Littoral's new initiative, "Arts and Agricultural Change," has seven strands of activity in progress in the U.K., which are described below. In addition, and mindful of similar activity worldwide, Littoral will present an international conference, "Arts and Agricultural Change: The Post-Agricultural Society," in England September 27-29, 2001.

Henry Bainbridge, one of the leaders of the U.K. Hill Farming Initiative. Photograph Don McPhee, The Guardian.

The conference aims to open up a dialogue among the arts, cultural and agricultural sectors, and to bring together policy makers, artists, farmers, rural community leaders, cultural critics, academics and scientists to discuss future options for farming families and rural communities in Britain. The conference will present examples of innovative arts and agricultural projects being developed by artists, farmers and communities in Europe and other parts of the world, including China, Thailand, the U.S., Finland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Argentina and South Africa. For example:

• In China, artist Wang Jian Wei has been cultivating new types of hybrid wheat in partnership with farming communities near Beijing.
• Photographer Kate Bellis and writer Michael Simmonds have been documenting the life of hill farming communities in the North of England.
• In New Mexico, Navajo artists have adopted a cultural language and training program for their young people based on restoration of the native Churro sheep breed.
• In Israel, artist Avital Geva has been cultivating organic produce using hydroponic methods for desert communities.
• In Germany and Finland, Landwirtschaft und Kunst artists are collaborating with agricultural colleges on training programs for artists and farmers.
• The Rural Media Company in Hereford is producing CD-ROMs and photographic projects about rural homelessness and related health issues.
• In Germany, artists Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison have been working for more than ten years on a "Meadows of Europe" restoration and documentation project.
• In Cheshire, Bosnian artist Radovan Kraguly is working with local dairy farmers and regional architects on proposals for a National Dairy Cow Museum and a photographic exhibition about the history of the dairy cow and dairy-farming families and their contribution to the rural economy in Britain.

Photograph by Tessa Bunney

Artists are also working with farming communities to develop projects in response to problems and issues in agriculture. Themes include:

• the implications of biotechnology and genetically modified crops
• industrial farming methods
• animal welfare
• artists' proposals for new farm energy production and economic diversification
• farmers' markets and marketing local produce to inner-city and multicultural communities
• The World Trade Organization
• The future of small farms and rural communities worldwide

Other artist/farmer hybrid projects to be discussed at the conference include:

• farming and fashion - the catwalk meets the stockyards
• design for smart clothing incorporating electronic and communication features for farmers
• digital farming: the impact of telecommunications and digital media on traditional farming
• creative digital art projects in support of farm healthcare initiatives
• farming and architecture: designs for stained glass windows for a rural church
• formulating ethical questions about cloning, and zeno-transplants (animal body-parts for humans)
• bio-technology experimentation on farm animals

A one-day forum to discuss a national farming community documentation project is set for March 29, 2001, at Friends House, London. This is the first time that leading people from the arts, media and cultural sectors will meet with farming-community representatives and government agriculture agencies to discuss a coordinated cultural response to the crisis in agriculture.

Making the Cultural Arguments for Farming

Photograph by Tessa Bunney

European government policy on agriculture has, until recently, been largely dictated by economic arguments, corporate agendas and industrial priorities. Although reform of the Common Agriculture Policy has introduced new environmental and social objectives for farming policy, little attention has been given to the social and economic impact that these changes are having upon rural communities. Public concern about food safety, animal welfare, genetically modified foods and the implications of biotechnology BSE in cattle, has raised ethical questions about industrial farming methods and the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture. The Littoral Arts and Agriculture Initiative is intended as a contribution to the public debate on these and other issues, and to the future of farming in Britain. In addition to the 2001 conference, Littoral proposes a national program of public forums, artists' projects, research and exhibitions to bring a convergence of arts, cultural and agricultural thinking to bear on the formulation of future policies in support of agriculture, rural communities and the countryside.

Agriculture: New Audiences and Partnerships for the Arts

Littoral seeks to foreground the role of the arts in response to the crisis in farming and to address the problems of social exclusion and cultural under-investment in rural communities. We are interested in finding practical solutions to farming problems, and we encourage collaborations between artists and farming communities in support of rural initiatives for health, education, sustainable farming practice, farm diversification and rural economic initiatives. Littoral commissions arts projects, exhibitions and publications dealing with issues in agriculture, and employs digital artists, photographers, textile artists, architects, designers and Net-art and audio artists on a wide range of research projects. The trust also promotes collaborative opportunities for artists interested in working on long-term projects with agricultural research agencies such as the farmer's unions and rural support organizations throughout the country.

The Arts and Agricultural Initiative

The initiative has seven developmental strands, each of which seeks to open up new areas of research and practice relating to some of the problems encountered by different sectors of farming. The Arts and Agriculture Initiative is supported by the Arts Council of England, the Bowland Initiative, North West Arts Board and the Hill Farming Initiative.

1. Regional Pilot Projects, North West of England

Internet and Web-site projects are developing in association with established farming and rural community groups in Lancashire; collaborations are being discussed with The Farmers Health Project, Lancashire Young Farmers Clubs and rural ICT training networks. Proposals include Cybermart projects in collaboration with the farm auction houses, to develop rural online communications and e-commerce, and to provide a social support function for local farming communities.

2. Reimaging the Farming Community and Countryside

Euro-Cow, digitally enhanced photograph by Jason Duggan

Digital photographic research and documentation projects will generate new images and visual narratives about contemporary farming to raise awareness of farming life among urban communities, and to question commonly held assumptions about the countryside. The projects will be exhibited locally in farm barns, and then toured to urban centers in Manchester.

Photographic/digital-art projects document the changing role of women on farms, where they are developing new farm businesses such as online marketing, Web-site design, cheese making, toy making and rural tourism projects. A photographic project and exhibition about hill farming life in the moorlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire documents the changes taking place in farming families and communities in the north of England.

Digital photography, video and installation projects in unusual farming contexts such as cow sheds, farm barns and farm kitchens are being developed in collaboration with farming families, aimed at communicating farming family traditions and values to urban audiences. This project is led by Manchester artist Nick Fry.

A program of digital-imaging projects and art works is being developed in response to health issues in farming, with reference to biotechnology and agriculture, the impact of BSE, genetically modified foods, cloning of farm animals and the technologies and aesthetics involved in artificial insemination programs.

3. Talking back: farming audio arts and radio projects

Community-radio and digital audio-arts projects about farming issues and rural communities are developing in partnership with audio artists and community-radio training organizations in Lancashire. These projects aim to extend audio arts and radio by documenting the cultural and oral traditions of rural communities, and to combat rural isolation by generating creative media skills and resources for farming communities.

In rural communities in Bowland, Lancashire, artists are working with local farming groups to enable them to produce and broadcast programs about farming life, alongside programs about local traditions, country music and songs and vernacular traditions in Bowland. Broadcasts will take place in January and March 2001. A Webcasting radio-streaming project is being planned with Radio Regen, Manchester, linking Lancashire farmers with farming and rural community groups in Canada, Australia and Germany.

Artist/musician Claire Mooney is working with local groups to construct a sound landscape or audio installation featuring environments and communities in Bowland. Digital audio-recording workshops in production skills are being provided for rural groups involved, as part of a collaboration with Radio Regen in Manchester, the North West Sound Archive in Clitheroe, Lancashire Young Farmers Cubs, the Hill Farming Initiative and the Bowland Initiative. Littoral is now working with regional arts and farming organizations to establish Arts and Agricultural Change projects in other parts of England and Wales

4. Other Projects

The National Dairy Cow project is a proposal to develop a National Dairy Cow Museum and study center documenting the contribution of the dairy-cow and the dairy-farming sector to the national farming economy and rural culture. The project would gather together all the main art works, exhibitions projects and photographic archives about the history of the dairy cow in Britain and the iconography of the cow in advertising, television, the media and art and in the farming industry. The projected museum would combine the functions of a study center and archive with an educational and research institute, and would bring together artists, farmers, scientists and architects in a new synthesis combining a working dairy farm, a cow museum, an art gallery and a research center dedicated to the dairy cow in Britain. The dairy-cow project would provide an important educational experience for urban populations, and inform them about the links between good farming practice, animal welfare and public health. It is also designed to enable farming families to build public support and to continue to farm and earn a livelihood from dairy farming. This is a collaborative project with the national Farmers Union, the Campbell Driver Architectural practice, dairy farmers in Cheshire and artist Radovan Kraguly.

Hawaiian shirts for Bowland farmers designed by digital artist Jason Duggan

Farming and Fashion: Textile-art and digital-art projects are being developed in collaboration with Young Farmers clubs in Lancashire, the Textile Design Department of Manchester Metropolitan University and farm auction houses in Lancashire. Designs for new "smart clothing" for farmers combine weatherproof wear with various telecommunication functions and animal-health sensors. There is also a themed farming fashion-wear project using images about farming issues for holiday clothing for young farmers.

A better life for rural women — multicultural farm exchanges: African women from inner-city Manchester are assisting farming families in the Forest of Bowland to develop new food products and marketing techniques, and to sell local lamb, dairy foods and countryside-visitor services to ethnic minority groups in the urban centers of the North West. Asian, African Caribbean and African families and community groups are encouraged to visit local farms, to promote healthy living and eating for urban communities, and to share cultural events with the rural and farming community. This project is funded by the Countryside Agency and the Arts Council of England (A4E program).

Digital Media and the Rural Economy: Littoral has a proposal for a conference and research program about the economic, marketing and social potential of digital arts and media projects for farming communities. The Digital Media program aims to bring together representatives from leading farming, community and development agencies with local authorities, universities and agricultural training agencies in Lancashire, and to meet experts from the field of digital art, telecommunications and electronics to discuss the impact of the new technologies on the rural communities and economy. The conference will focus on the potential of these technologies to creative economic, social and community benefits for farming communities, to combat social exclusion, and to support rural health, education and community development. The conference will offer case studies documenting digital arts and media projects from Lancashire and from elsewhere in Britain and Europe.

5. National Farming Documentation Initiative

Farmer John Hartley barbecues Bowland beef for visitors from Somalia and Nigeria; photograph Farmers Guardian, May 2000

A U.K.-wide social documentation and cultural-investment program is planned, taking the 1930s U.S. Farm Security Administration photographic project as its inspiration and point of departure. The intention is to undertake a five year (2001-06) documentation and cultural research program, employing artists, writers, photographers and sociologists to record and interpret the radical changes now taking place in British agriculture and the nation's farming communities. The project is planned as part social document and part cultural advocacy on behalf of the small and marginal farming communities in Britain. It will also focus on surfacing creative strategies that could enable farming families to negotiate the current changes in farming.

6. European Art and Agriculture Education Forum

Littoral is collaborating with Landwirtschaft und Kunst (Kassel, Germany) on proposals for a European Arts and Agriculture summer school. The trust is in dialogue with a number of agricultural colleges and art schools, including the University of Kassel; Myerscough Agricultural College, Lancashire; Bishop Burton College, Humberside; and Pohjois Savon Agricultural College in Finland.

7. A Cultural Strategy for U.K. Farming families

Green wheat field, by Chinese artist Wang Jian Wei

Littoral is currently working on a cultural strategy for the small and marginal farming families in the U.K. This proposes to establish an extensive social documentation and cultural audit, and to create a five-year arts and cultural investment strategy to mobilize the creative potential of the U.K. farming community, to help them to manage this crucial period of transition. The farming-families cultural strategy is being developed in partnership with the Hill Farming Initiative and the Small and Family Farms Alliance, with the support of the NFU.

More on Littoral

Based in a small, rural moorland village in Rossendale, East Lancashire, Littoral undertakes arts consultancy, research and development for community, environmental, educational and arts organizations throughout the Britain. The organization is largely self-funded, but receives some funding for projects from the Arts Council of England, North West Arts Board, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Lancashire County Arts and a number of arts and community foundations.

In addition to the Arts and Agricultural Change Initiative, Littoral is also currently working in partnership with the Trade Unions and bus workers in Northern Ireland on art projects designed to promote better community relations and anti-sectarian initiatives in the region. The trust collaborates with environmental organizations to develop integrated multicultural arts and environmental projects for inner city schools in Manchester, and is working on a regional crafts initiative in support of Local Agenda 21 programs for recycling and sustainability.

"Littoral" is a geographical term referring to the sea-shore zone between high and low tide: an unstable, ever-changing area where land and water continually interact and new life forms arise and evolve. We have adopted the name Littoral to communicate the provisional nature of our work. Although some of our interests and projects appear to lie outside the remit of the art world, we see ourselves as pioneering the role of the arts in response to social, environmental and economic change.

Littoral is also about the recognition of the thresholds beyond which lie territories that challenge the boundaries of knowledge, in both the art and the life world. Littoral practice is about new ways of understanding and responding to the life world, where, increasingly, social, economic and environmental problems are being redefined as an intractable "wild zone" (Urry), resistant to conventional professional practice. These zones of complexity, uncertainty, underinvestment, marginality and social instability are where Littoral art attempts to gain a purchase.

Ian Hunter is the Littoral Trust project director and lead artist. In 1989-90 he established Littoral/Projects Environment as an arts trust for social and environmental change. Celia Larner is the trust co-director and administrator.

Original CAN/API publication: January 2001