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The Rural Assembly draws on a series of public programmes and research that developed throughout 2018. It looks at contemporary artists and creative practitioners who are challenging the assumptions made about rural life and culture, providing a new vision of the countryside grounded in everyday experience and a critique of the rural-urban binary. Connecting the local to the global, this conference invites an international and transdisciplinary conversation on art and the rural, with a focus on profiling projects from across the world.
The Rural Assembly also forms part of the East Contemporary Visual Arts Network’s project New Geographies, chaired and coordinated by Wysing Arts Centre and supported by an Ambition for Excellence grant from Arts Council England. The programme has also been supported by the Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Research Grant from the Art Fund, and made possible through the contributions of partners: University of Aberystwyth, Istanbul Biennial, Manchester Metropolitan University and Wysing Arts Centre. Further support has been provided by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London, and SAHA for Fulya Erdemci’s and Pelin Tan’s participation.
Thu 20 Jun, 7pm
A leading practitioner of socially engaged art in rural areas. For over thirty years Wu Mali has developed a distinctive approach to working with communities across Taiwan.
Fri 21 Jun, 11.30am – 6pm
Panels and seminars on embedded artistic practice in the rural, translocal networks, decolonising the rural and rural representations.
Sat 22 Jun, 11am – 7pm
With a focus on artistic practice and experience in the rural, the second day provides a slower pace with walks, a collective lunch and performances, screenings and seminars.
Thu 29 Jun 2017, 7pm
Director of Liverpool Biennial Sally Tallant joins artist collective Myvillages to consider new models for socially engaged practice in non-urban settings.
Thu 26 Oct 2017, 7pm
What is the relationship between geopolitics, conflict and climate change?
Thu 15 Mar 2018, 7pm
How do contemporary artists challenge representations of the rural through landscape?
Thu 5 Apr 2018, 7pm
Artist Katrina Palmer, designer Hefin Jones and Dr. Menelaos Gkartzios introduce their practices of working in post-industrial regions.
March Town Hall, Cambridgeshire
Sun 10 June 2018
11.30am – 4.30pm
Free, booking required
Off-site event bringing together artists of international standing alongside grassroots projects to discuss creative ways they work with communities.
Thu 5 Jul 2018, 7pm
How do artists represent and situate themselves in agricultural contexts? Featuring artists Georgina Barney and Paul Chaney alongside photojournalist Uwe H. Martin.
Thu 25 Oct 2018, 7pm
Artist duo FRAUD performatively present their ongoing art-led inquiry Carbon Derivatives, which investigates forests and foreshores as salvage sites for carbon, unearthing the systemic violence of the green economy.
Manchester School of Art
Thu 15 Nov 2018, 6pm
Artist Ruth Beale, historian Katrina Navickas and community organiser Chris Blake as we ask, what might the rural commons mean today?
Edited by Myvillages
Part of the acclaimed Documents of Contemporary Art series of anthologies which collect writing on major themes and ideas in contemporary art.
7 May – 18 August 2019
Sliced rocks, frog butter spoons, bottled spirits and tractor parts are imported by artist collective Myvillages (Kathrin Böhm, Wapke Feenstra and Antje Schiffers) to reimagine the Gallery as a mental and physical space to access the rural, allowing multiple voices, experiences and expectations to meet each other.
Myvillages is an artist group founded in 2003 by Kathrin Böhm (UK / DE), Wapke Feenstra (NL) and Antje Schiffers (DE). The work addresses the evolving relationship between the rural and the urban, looking at different forms of production, pre-conceptions and power relationships. Myvillages initiates and organizes international artistic projects which range from small-scale informal presentations to long-term collaborative research projects, from work in private spaces to public conferences, from exhibitions to publications and from personal questions to public debate. Current and recent projects include Vorratskammer / Pantry at House of World Cultures in Berlin (2011), Good News from Nowhere at the Architecture Foundation London (2013), Lending Shape to Form (2015), A–Z Marzona Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Farmers and Ranchers(2012–2015) with M12, Colorado, US and the Fries Museum, NL and the International Village Show for the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig (2014–2016), Myvillages’ ongoing work in London includes monthly Haystacks events and Myvillages Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks project, winner of the 2014 Create Art Award.
Wysing Arts Centre is a registered charity that provides a range of programmes for artistic research, experimentation, discovery and production, out of which emerges an ongoing programme of exhibitions, public events, activity for young people, families and schools. Their large rural site near Cambridge includes a gallery, educational facilities, artists’ studios, project spaces, a 17th century farmhouse, and a growing collection of outdoor sculpture.
‘The Global Countryside: Rural Change and Development in Globalization (GLOBAL-RURAL)’ is a major research project funded by the European Research Council. The study aims to advance our understanding of the workings and impact of globalization in rural regions through the development and application of new conceptual and methodological approaches.
The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts has been organising the Istanbul Biennial since 1987. The biennial aims to create a meeting point in İstanbul in the field of visual arts between artists from diverse cultures and the audience. The fourteen biennials İKSV has organised up to now have enabled the formation of an international cultural network between local and international art circles, artists, curators and art critics by bringing together new trends in contemporary art every two years. Considered as one of the most prestigious biennials alongside Venice, Sao Paolo and Sydney, the Istanbul Biennial prefers an exhibition model which enables a dialogue between artists and the audience through the work of the artists instead of a national representation model.
Manchester School of Art is an innovator in art and design education and research in the UK. We celebrate our 180th birthday this year and draw on our experience and expertise to offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses that provide our students with the essential skills and knowledge for their chosen career. Contemporary Art in rural places and the representation of rural places in visual and popular culture are significant research specialisms for staff in the Department of Art.
