Fallow Land
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Project site.
Exhibition article by Corridor 8. Mote 102 Gallery's Exhibition Poster Project Catalogue. Fallow Land centred around four artist residencies (Oct 24 to May 25) creating a series of interdisciplinary place-centred projects across 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 has 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 from 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 in the town, by placing vegetable and herb planters in public green spaces. For some time now I’ve been working in slow time, experimentally investigating aspects of the landscape around Jedburgh. I’ve worked with sound, performance, movement and lens-based media to explore new ideas on ruralism. Playing the part of a Borders Landowner I’ve carried out specific actions in the environment, examining the complexity of layered meanings of landscape, 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 has informed the themes and concepts that emerged during the Fallow Land project. I found myself following two new and separate paths. With assistance in the mapping of specific fields and their uses, I began carrying out and 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. The second path led more towards local communities in organising and running a series of four art walks and initiating food growing project called 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 to many of my activities, 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 is to establish a community garden and then look at the more ambitious possibility of starting a demonstration garden. |
