Farm Walks - Call for Artists

Background

The Farm Walks project was co-created by Leitrim County Council Arts Office and The Dock Arts Centre with The Leitrim Sustainable Agriculture Group and the Ulster Wildlife Farmers’ Group in Fermanagh and funded through the Creative Ireland Shared Island Programme. Through the project, the partners aim to build cross-border cooperation, to explore the common ground between farmers and artists, and to highlight shared farming and environmental interests.

In 2024 the programme consisted of six walks (three in Leitrim and three in Fermanagh) which featured a tour of each farm and a talk by an invited artist whose work resonates with that farm, its creative potential, heritage or other special characteristics. While this demonstrated the crossover and shared interests of artists and farmers in the two counties, this next phase of the project in 2025, which is split into two parts, will provide the opportunity for artists and farmers to work together for longer periods on projects of shared interest. Both artists and farmers are paid for their time, and further funding will be sought to bring any ideas arising from those partnerships to fruition.

The project seeks to develop a platform for creative collaboration between artists and farmers, providing alternatives to the current view, and making connections and linkages where they may not have existed previously. The project takes from international models which have shown that there is a real demand not only from farmers looking to explore the capacity of creativity to influence what they do, but also by artists wanting to interact with farmers and to and have positive impact and explore their practice in a farm environment.

How do I get involved?

A current call for farmers from Leitrim and Fermanagh to become involved is ongoing. From the interest we receive, we will select between six and eight farms across Leitrim and Fermanagh to take part. This isn’t a competition of best farms, but rather a selection of different farms across the two counties of different size, different farm practices, different characteristics and different ideas for the future. Farmers aren’t expected to ever have engaged with an artist in the past, just to have an interest in doing so now. Details of these farmers will be published here so that artists can identify farms that they are particularly drawn to or align with their interests for one reason or another.

What happens then?

Following the closing date for expressions of interest for artists we hold a series of one-hour site visits to each farm over four days for artists interested in one or other farm. Following the site visits, artists are invited to prepare proposals for what they would like to do as part of a project at one or other of the farms they have visited. An independent panel shortlists a maximum of three proposals that will be presented to each participating farmer who makes the final selection of which artist they would like to work with.

These proposals are not definitive in-stone plans that an artist would be expected to follow directly. Rather, by identifying potential lines of enquiry, areas of interest, and processes they would like to undertake, the proposal provides a vivid insight into the applicant’s methodology as an artist, their understanding of the farm, and a demonstration of their capacity for developing innovative projects appropriate to that farm. Given that these proposals are only based on a short site visit, while they may serve as useful starting points, the anticipation is that projects would evolve when underway and differ substantially, if not completely, from the original proposal.

The initial residency lasts for ten days over two months. These ten days can be taken in one block or spread over the two months as agreed between the artist and farmer. There are no preconditions on what this part of the project might consist of, and it is not obligatory to have produced anything by the end of it – although a materials budget is available if required. This part of the project is perhaps best described as action-research. For many Farmer/Artist partnerships, the 10-day residency might be the right length to explore what the artist and farmer want to do together, but some partnerships that discover valuable areas of common interest and further potential can apply to take part in a continuing project lasting a further 20 days over the next four months.

Farmer/Artist partnerships moving onto this phase will have based this next proposal on shared understandings and ambitions for what they want to get achieve and see coming from the project – a joint proposal. While the first 10-day project might have been action-research, this part of the project is more focused and does anticipate having definite outcomes of some sort or planning towards definite outcomes.

Schedule

Budget

First Stage (10 days)

Second Stage (20 days)

Further Information

Leitrim Arts Office
Email: arts@leitrimcoco.ie 
Ph: 071 96 20005 Ext 694

The Dock
Email: thedockartscentre@gmail.com
Ph: 071 96 50828
Web: www.thedock.ie