The Rural

Part of the acclaimed series of anthologies which document major themes and ideas in contemporary art.

A timely collection of texts, interviews and documentation reflecting the complex interrelationship between the urban, the rural and contemporary cultural production.

What, and where, is ‘the Rural’? From the rocks that break a farmer’s plough on a field in Japan, to digital infrastructures which organise geographically dispersed interests and ambitions, vast parts of our lives are still connected and dependent on resources, production and infrastructures located within rural geographies, and the rural remains a shared and common cultural space. This anthology offers an urgent and diverse cross-section of rural art, thinking and practice, and considers how artists respond to the socio-economic divides between the rural and the urban, from re-imagined farming practices and food systems to architecture, community projects and transnational local networks. Edited by three artists who have been working within rural situations and communities for the last twenty years, this anthology is formed as a document, tool and navigation device for future artistic practice, where ‘the Rural’ is filtered through a lens sharpened by an audiencebased model of art which practices from within the culture it addresses.