Fallow Land

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Fallow Land centred around four artist residencies (Oct 24 to May 25) creating a series of interdisciplinary place-centred projects. The projects examines working and post-agricultural lands involving Portobello, Craigentinny and Jedburgh culminating in an exhibition at Mote102 Leith Edinburgh (9-17 May 2025) and new journal publication: Fallow Land produced by Rosy Naylor and Tom Jeffreys.

Over a period of six months, each artist explored a number of interpretations of fallow: from soil health and soil conductivity to community and marine farming initiatives, from fallow processes like tilling to rested land and lands left behind untended due to forced exile.

The project was curated by Rosy Naylor with scientific support for the ‘Residue’ residency (artist Hanna Paniutsich), from Professor Larissa Naylor, geomorphologist at the University of Glasgow who has a specific knowledge experience relating to Seafield and the legacy of waste for the coastal zone. The project saw contributions from two MSc Earth Futures student placements, Emma West and Liqin Peng creating an ‘Inquiry’ series, available to see via a dedicated Instagram feed.

Fallow Land, Fallow Communities was my working title for the work in and around Jedburgh. I began by following several avenues of interest. By talking to farmers about the future of food growing I learned that they think less about fallow land and more about ensuring soil sustainability for arable use while allowing for grazing and other land uses. I learned about histories of land ownership, land use and the political constraints under which farmers work in the area. Simultaneously, I began a series of themed art walks and established Get Jed Fed, a community food growing programme, and, by situating vegetable and herb planters in green spaces, a challenge to the orthodoxies around the use of public space in the town, .

For some time I'd been carrying out multi-media investigations  into aspects of the landscape around Jedburgh - working with sound, performance, movement and lens-based media to explore new ideas on ruralism. Playing the part of a Borders Landowner I carried out specific actions in the environment, examining the complexity of landscape, its layered meanings, among other topics. Many of these actions explored foundational ideas of the rights of land ownership, for example usus, fructus and abusus, pillars of private property under Roman law. Others offered an idiosyncratic approach to acts such recording, measuring and assessing. This research informed the themes and concepts that emerged during the Fallow Land project. 

With assistance in the mapping of specific fields and their uses, I began carrying documenting in sound and moving image a series of actions in two fallow fields above Jedburgh. These fields had been set aside from food production for regeneration and to provide foraging for birds. A second path led towards local communities, the four art walks and Get Jed Fed. It became evident that in the Borders there exist fallow communities awaiting some kind of seed or activation that will see them grow and bind together to produce creative outcomes. This literal and metaphorical hybrid reading of the word ‘fallow’ became central  my understanding of the project, as did an appreciation of the differences in scale and technological mediation between agricultural production and community food growing.

The aim of Get Jed Fed  has expanded to look at the more ambitious possibilities of exploring and curating on-site environmental and ecological themes with artists and ultimately of establishing a demonstration garden.