The Anthology of Rural Life project that Colin Robins & Oliver Udy have been collaborating on for over a decade has been one such opportunity. Their exhibition: Anthology of Rural Life – Farmers of The Lizard is a photographic survey of families and individuals involved with the land. They have made over twenty new portraits of farmers on The Lizard that are juxtaposed in the gallery with photographs that they have taken in Europe. This show offers a visual insight into the lives of many different people, in many different places, that are living in rural areas and have relationships to the land they live on. The exhibition aims to develop a narrative around shifts in rural life, and some of the complexities currently facing the countryside. It also provides a recognition of the central place that farming continues to play in the social and economic landscape of the Lizard.
The Lizard peninsula is a rural region with an ancient history of farming that is reflected in the large proportion of land that is still being worked today. Kestle Barton was a working farm until Boaden Lyne retired in 2005 and it took on our current multi-purpose identity.
Dr Menelaos Gkartzios remarks, in her forward to their first book collection, The Anthology of Rural Life Vol. 1, ‘Like rural researchers, Oliver Udy and Colin Robins co-create a collection of all things that ‘make’ rural places, both visible and invisible, both material and experiential. Portraits of people and animals, landscapes, practices and experiences of the everyday. This is rural life – where people live, what jobs they do, how they spend their free time. Networks, products, houses, desires. These are all rural too.’
The complete Anthology of Rural Life project will be archived at Kresen Kernow as a social and historical document.
Colin Robins & Oliver Udy : The Anthology of Rural Life – Farmers of The Lizard
15 June – 1 September 2024
Kestle Barton
Manaccan Helston
Cornwall TR12 6HU
www.kestlebarton.co.uk
