“The landscape re-establishes connections, facilitates exchange, mixes populations. The landscape becomes a link. It re-establishes social ties.”

Michel Collot

LAND was a 2 year Creative Europe cooperation project, focussed on bringing the arts and rural landscapes together, in order to achieve our key goals:

• PRODUCE stronger inter-connected relationships
• ENGAGE audiences with artistic work in the rural landscape
• EXCHANGE knowledge, skills and learnings in this specialist field of work

LAND “offered” the landscape as a field of experimentation in the hope of reuniting what is often seen as disunited or separate; humanity and its environment, art and nature, science and experience.

LAND statistics:

• 9 Artists / Companies
• 6 Residencies
• 10 Presentations
• 82 Performances / Installation
• 34,212 Audiences
• 9 Land Stewards / Environmental Organisations
• Over 1000 young people engaged with 40 workshops across 3 countries
• 2 seminars with 21 speakers, attended by 69 delegates in 2 countries
• 1 University
• 17 schools

PRODUCE:

Strengthen the relationship between partners, artists and land stewards in the creation and production of artistic work in the landscape. LAND delivered 10 presentations of landscape arts from 9 artists / companies at the four partner festivals, delivering a total of 82 installation days/performances experienced by an overall audience of 34,212. This was complimented by 6 residencies facilitating the delivery of the presentations and future collaborations. For each, relationships and understanding between artists and land stewards were fostered rooting each artistic creation with the sites, whilst forging new links, experiences, and collaborations.

'LAND gave us the opportunity to focus FROM a natural landscape instead of focussing ON a natural landscape from the outside.'

Studio Maarten Kolk and Guus Kusters

ENGAGE:

Develop audiences for artist work in the landscape, targeting young people. LAND brought landscape arts to a wider and more diverse audience through delivering workshops and participatory activities designed around local activity and communities. Over 1000 young people were engaged through 40 workshops across 3 countries. In addition, by working closely with land stewards, LAND offered a way of reaching new audiences across the arts – environment sectors.

‘With a good communication on this artistic work, we could attract and sensitize a wider public to environmental interest, in expanding the target audiences on this natural space.’

Parc Naturel Regional de Camargue

picture: Plan B |

EXCHANGE:

Develop the professional skills and abilities of partners and land stewards in the understanding of this specialist field of work. LAND placed capacity building at the heart of its priorities with a particular focus on training and education. LAND held 2 seminars, attended by a total of 69 delegates with 21 speakers.

‘It has opened our minds to the possibilities and raised our ambition for arts in the landscape which encourage an audience to think differently about place.’

Tom Munro, Dorset AONB Manager, Land Steward

picture: Eilandkinderen | exhibition about climate change | Oerol 2019

On the bespoke website site at www.LANDartists.eu information is shared about the project activities, the network of arts producers, artists, land stewards and universities and our project outcomes / results.

LAND ultimately has developed integrity, knowledge and audiences for landscape-based arts, increased confidence and ambition in the land sector; developed relationships and markets for artists and importantly built the foundations for the partners commitment to continue working as a collaborative European network into the future.

LAND created ‘a sustainable and interdependent relationship between the arts and land stewardship based on creative partnerships that have the confidence to experiment and innovate’.

Howard Davies, NAAONB, UK