Visualising The Rural

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Visualising the Rural

A Conference at the University of Cumbria 4th - 5th July

Š John Darwell, 2001



A conference exploring current conceptions and misconceptions of rural space based on photographic visualisation

According to the Office for National Statistics (2009) almost 80% of rural space in England is inhabited (and worked) by less than 20% of the population (slightly different percentages for Scotland and Wales). Modern and contemporary arts and thought represent and reflect on urban life as an environment most of us inhabit. Consequently, contemporary life is often understood as a synonym with urban existence. Yet, the space of Britain, as an example within Europe, consists primarily of countryside. There are arguably vast unrepresented and unseen spaces and places. This apparent lack of artistic and philosophical attention to the contemporary rural space can be said to have led to an alienation of country life. We have all seen idealised pastoral images used as a shorthand representation of farmland and the countryside. This romanticisation also underpins environmental dreams of purifying country retreats and smallholdings free from environmental guilt. Rural spaces tend to be seen as loci of escape from the human condition rather than expressing it.

Consequently they are seldom the focus of cutting edge arts practice and display. However, the countryside is arguably an industrial space inasmuch as it is the location of food production and an ever-increasing tourism economy, and therefore as much part of the same economic reality as urban work realms. Rural space is consequently a facet of the contemporary lifeworld, yet perhaps not represented as such. This conference aims to provide a platform for an interdisciplinary debate questioning the meaning of the contemporary rural landscape seen through photography. What does it mean to live in rural space? Does or can photography shape our understanding of the rural? What does the rural realm mean to the urban population? How do we view and evaluate rural depictions within the context of the wider contemporary art world? Katrin Joost


5 min chair 20 min each (80 min) 5 min each swap over time (20min) 15 min Q+A

13.00 - 15.00 Panels (3 speakers)

12.00 - 13.00 Lunch

10.00 – 11.30 Registration / Tea & Coffee

Common Area Learning Gateway

11.30 - 12.00 Welcome

Lecture Theatre

Conference Schedule - 4th July

Ken Marsden (UCL) The New Forest National Park Boundary: Seeing Landscape Differently

Fergus Heron (University of Brighton) Common

Jax Horswill Ruth Rutherford

Simon Robinson (Independent artist) What is Rural? Edgelands: the Last True Wilderness- A Photographic Exploration

Dara McGrath (Independent artist) The Grey Country: The Interzone Between the Rural and Urban

Lizzie Smith (Independent artist/architect) Panorama and Process: The Photographic Panorama of the River Clyde Exploring RuralUrban Relationship

Karen Sheperdson (Canterbury Christ University) Close to Home and Navigating the Parochial Heike LĂśwenstein (University of the Creative Arts Rochester) Panoramic Photography, Place and Identity

Between the Rural & Urban: Edgeland & Panorama

Room 2 / LG102

Questioning the Habits / Conventions of Looking at the Rural Landscape

Room 1 / LG101

Chair: Katrin Joost (University of Cumbria)

Matthew Andrew (University Campus Suffolk) Mark Edwards (Independent artist) Space & Place

Rob Fraser (Independent artist) Land Keepers

Will Clarkson (Independent artist) Game

Allison Hale (Independent artist) Hog Island: Picturing New England Agriculture

Rural Living: Work & Home

Room 3 / LG103


19.30 Conference Dinner @Alexandros - thegreek.co.uk/

18.00 - 19.30 Crown Gallery Exhibition Opening

17.00 - 18.00 Networking / Break

5 min chair 20 min each (80 min) 5 min each swap over time (20min) 15 min Q+A

15.00 - 15.30 Tea & Coffee 15.30 - 17.00 Panels (3 speakers)

Chair: Rob Sara University of Cumbria

Henry Iddon (Independent artist) Hill People: Who are the People Visiting Rural Upland Areas of Britain?

Ann-Marie Atkinson (Independent artist) Rugged Places

Rural Identity: Land, Language and Faces

Chair: Alex Hodby (Redeye)

Chair: Katrin Joost University of Cumbria

Harry Hall (University of Sunderland) Chin (Leaving): An Investigation of the Urbanisation of Nomadic People

Nick May (Independent artist) Supermarket FOODCHAIN: The Fresh and the Chilled

Yvonne Davies (Independent artist) ‘The photographer’s dialogue and the subject’s narrative in mixed media storytelling.’

Social Issues

Chair: Sarah Bonner (University of Cumbria)

(Independent artists) Intersections between the Rual and the Urban: Rurall Idyll2

Chair: John Kippin University of Sunderland

John Hillman (Falmouth University) Seeing and Living in the Diorama of the Post-Industrial Landscape

Michele Allen (Independent artist) Lost Topographies and Evolving Landscapes

Peter Gagen (Independent artist) Landscape Consciousness and the Exposure of the Rural Idyll

Post-Industrial Rural


10.00 - 12.00 Panels (3 speakers)

09.30 – 10.00 Registration / Tea & Coffee

Common Area Learning Gateway

Lecture Theatre

Conference Schedule - 5th July

Sam Storey (New College, Swindon) The Cinematic Rural

Hugh Greenland (Durham University) ”Discovery” of the Landscape: Photography, Tourism and the 18th Century Myth

Chair: Katrin Joost (University of Cumbria)

Cecilia Grönberg (Gothenburg University) The Pyramids of Westrogothia: From Local History to Cultural Tourism

Steve Clarke (University of Chester/Liverpool John Moores University) Space Invaders: Littering the Countryside

Martyn Hudson (Northumbrian Exchange Project) Micro-Topographies and Creative Economies in Northumberland Art & Music

Chair: Sarah Bonner (University of Cumbria)

Elisabeth Shannon (University of St Andrews) Vision/Version: Depictions of Luzzara by Paul Strand, Gianni Berengo Gardin and Stephen Shore

The Rural as Visual Construct

Room 2 / LG102

Tourism: Marketing Imagined & Invented Places

Room 1 / LG101

Chair: John Darwell (University of Cumbria)

Robyn Woolston (Independent artist) Rural Art - Cutting Edge or Provincial?

Linda Bussey (Independent artist) Deposition

Philip Harris (University of Derby)

James Brown (Norwich University of the Arts) Gaz Bar Blues: Architectural Resilience and Re-Use in East Anglia

Across the Rural Space: Infrastructure, Roads, Debris & Other Traces

Room 3 / LG103


13.00 - 14.30 Panels (3 speakers)

12.00 - 13.00 Lunch

14.30 - 15.00 Plenary

Chair: Sarah Bonner (University of Cumbria)

Chair: Rob Sara (University of Cumbria)

Ben Elliott (Northumbria University) Connecting with the Landscape: Contextual Sensitivity in Architecture

Stuart Parker (Independent artist) The Lake District - Three Perspectives

Simon Warner (Independent artist) Ways to the Stone House

Walter Lewis (Independent artist) East Keswick Encountered

Grorgina Barney (Independent artist) How is the Countryside Sold?

Adam O’Meara Rupert Hildyard (Lincoln University) Representing the Post-Rural: Agriculture as a Failed Experiment

Chair: Katrin Joost (University of Cumbria)

Rosemary Shirley (MMU) Performing the Village

Llinos Lanini (Independent artist) The Rural Olympics

Stuart Handley (Independent artist) Drowning fenlands?

Contemporary Village & Building

Economical Value of the Rural

Unchanging Rural Myth vs. Mutable Contemporary & Future of Rural Reality


Photography in Research and Education : A New Network


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