May 2020
Coming soon post lockdown!! Opening July 22nd at Bartley and Company Art
mother lode engages an inspirational site; a small farm that ameliorates climate change and stands for food security and food ethics. Wairarapa Eco Farm is an oasis, a tiny salve on the open wound of the climate emergency. Disrupting our aesthetically based relationship to garden landscapes and the Edenic heritage of such manufactured notions of nature, this group of images engage the history of the garden and its representation in an art historical context. These images oppose the formulaic and crafted nature of the gardens we have come to regard as beautiful and the garden that has populated our art historical frame.
This garden is an ethical, sustainable and wholly different aesthetic beast. Groupings of kale can be seen emerging from the clumps of grass in late summer. Trees, herbs and all kinds of plant matter are seen co-existing and thriving. This is the garden where Shelton’s vegetables and eggs have come from for the last thirteen years. This food is produced through the political structure of Community Supported Agriculture which backs its farmer and enables them to rely on a predictable income through the payment of shares in advance for a season’s produce. Oppositional to the monolithic monocultural farms that surround it, Wairarapa Eco-farm is a little trailblazer, a game changer and an emblem of where we need to head.