Since the mid-2000s, artistic and curatorial practices have increasingly been engaging with the rural sphere and agricultural practices. Artists are addressing the sociocultural context of rural living environments, the culture of farming and its economic conditions today and in the past as well as new forms of agriculture and rural life. From an art-historical perspective, references can be made to almost all subject areas of contemporary art focusing on the relationship between man and nature, for example art & ecology, environmental art and landscape painting. These creative projects are gaining attention as politically driven art through their close connection to pressing sociopolitical questions concerning food production and consumption and global food supply. Many of these works are made with the participation of members of the rural community and can be categorized as socially engaged art, some document existing circumstances, and in yet others artists turn farmers themselves. The research project »Sowing and harvesting« aims to investigate these different artistic strategies in view of their sociopolitical concerns and their effects by looking at selected international art projects with a focus on agricultural topics in the city and countryside. This categorization is to include various questions on participation, reception or results with regard to producers, organizers, participants and viewers. Further, larger curatorial projects are to be examined in terms of their intentions in promoting art projects in rural contexts as well as their promotion of this context as a starting point for artistic work. It is precisely the distance of the subject of agriculture to art that opens up a suitable exemplary space for investigating artistic work at the point of intersection between art and society. As well as defining the subject area, it is to be expected that the comparative analysis will be able to contribute to the debate on politically motivated art by citing specific examples in its examination of the relationship between art and agriculture. Parallel to the research being carried out, the exhibition »Hungry City« (Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin) was held in 2012 as the practical part of the doctorate.

Tutors:

• Prof. Dr. Juliane Rebentisch
• Prof. Wolfgang Luy