Women in Farming, Dartmoor

Aune Head Arts (AHA) project, Women in Farming 2006-8 grew out of Focus on Farmers.  Six women artists: Jennie Hayes, Tot Foster, Anthea Nicholson, Louise Evans, Maddy Pethick and Penny Klepuszewska explored the life and work of three women hill farmers on Dartmoor.  During the project the artists recorded their experiences of life on a farm.  The intent was not only to explore farming practice, but to look at the people themselves, and the place in which they live and work.  The artists shadowed the farmers on their daily routines, on and off the farm – caring for livestock, haymaking, attending livestock sales, running errands, meeting with DNP and Defra officials, completing paperwork, etc. 

Report

Image by Jennie Hayes

Image by Jennie Hayes

Image by Jennie Hayes

Since 1997 Aune Head Arts has blazed a trail in contemporary art-making with and alongside rural communities, re-defining a form of engaged arts practice that works with and alongside communities in rural places, led by an array of professional artists drawn from all corners of the UK.

We work with artists, farmers, health workers, environmentalists, educationalists, community leaders, young people, older people, dancers, fun lovers, movers and shakers, friends, acquaintances, shop workers, land workers, milkers, tailors, media geeks, bookish freaks, workers, players, dragon slayers, enquirers, talkers, listeners, lookers, makers, virtual sharers, mates, strangers, paper pushers, chaos makers, out of breathers, deeply doubters…pretty much anyone really.

We believe the arts are enriching for our health, our environment our society and our selves; that everyone is capable of creative expression, and that collaboration between contemporary artists and communities can provide work which is exciting, challenging, stimulating, and life-changing.

We support our work through funding from a wide variety of arts and non-arts funders, including Arts Council England and many of the UK’s leading foundations.  The Paul Hamlyn Foundation said that our Walk your Ears! schools project was “among the most interesting work we have supported, and The Baring Foundation noted, in awarding us support for our EVA project that ‘the Trustees were particularly please with the work you have done in the past with isolated older people, and felt that Aune Head Arts could make a strong contribution to the Foundation’s goals of supporting older people.”   In a recent assessment, Arts Council England said that AHA has “an ability to reach little-engaged and unengaged audiences through partnership working with a variety of non-arts 
 organisations”.






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