Field Projects - Fafard and GPS Mowing
I am writing about the work of Jeremy Wood at the moment, that is terribly late, and for some reason more difficult to do than expected. Jeremy has a series of pieces called Mowing the Lawn that I was thinking about yesterday. He the traces the lines of mowing his mother’s paddock using a motorized mower and the global positioning infrastructure. Seems mindless really, but these are quotidian movements through space that millions of farmers, golf course owners, gardeners and suburban dwellers do. So why not trace the lines, distance, time and the movement of going nowhere but doing it somewhere!
As I was thinking about it, I recalled Joe Fafard’s field work project - Maclaren Against the Grain: The Fafard Field Project.
The early winter of 1996 marked the beginning of an idea of the MacLaren Art Centre to work in conjunction with the 1997 International Plowing Match (IPM) to create a plowed and planted work of art in a farm field—a big farm field. The MacLaren Art Centre’s Director and Curator, William Moore began by talking with internationally recognized Canadian artist Joe Fafard from Regina. Joe is known for his agricultural imagery and his ability to tackle big projects. An idea began to take shape.
The idea developed that a well defined image be planted in various crops suitable for aerial and elevated viewing at or near the International Plowing Match site. Roy Hickling, because of his background as a farmer and his abiding interest in art, was invited to act as the Curator and Project Coordinator. After a presentation to the1997 IPM committee, they agreed to incorporate MacLaren Against the Grain: The Fafard Field Project into their event.
A completely wonderful cooperative effort was born. Its connections linked farmer and artist, cultural and farming institutions, and the City of Barrie with its rural community. The MacLaren Art Centre is responsible for organizing and creating the work for the plowing match in exchange for the use of an adjacent fifty acre field that the match secured. The result is a truly unique growing installation exhibition. It represents the plowed image of a horse and is planted in different crops which, over the period it runs, will change with the seasons—like an animation.
Fafard’s work was exhibited last year at the National Gallery of Canada and there I saw a film of the changing seasons of the Horse. This just stayed with me. Especially the images of the farmers doing this work. I am not much of a nationalist, but, this just seems like a Canadian’s thing to do.
