The second Rural Idyll residency took place in March 2011 on a small Suffolk sheep farm in ‘Constable Country’, a one hour train ride from Liverpool street station, London. Little Dodnash farm has a group of rustic barns surrounded by pastures grazed by sheep and through which a tributary of the river Wen runs. It also has a lily pond which was originally fished by monks in the 13th century which lies beside the remains of a flint wall once forming part of a small priory and a five acre area of woodland made up mainly of sweet chestnut trees and bluebells in the spring.

Rural Idyll was initiated by artist and farmer Ruth Richmond who curated the show with Jax Horswill. They invited submissions for work to be made in response to or provoked by the space, location, aesthetics, communities or traditions of rural life stating. ‘Through the work we hope to add to the debate about the relevance of contemporary art in rural life and offer a platform for rural life and its issues.’ Catherine was one of 12 artists selected for the residency.

http://web.me.com/ruthrichmond/Rural_Idyll_2/Welcome.html

Residency 7-13 March, 2011, Exhibition June 2011

Catherine’s main focus during the residency was to combine her personal response to the specific sheep farm environment at Little Dodnash with research into the wider context of livestock farming since the UK’s 2001 foot and mouth crisis, looking at articles, bureaucratic requirements and scientific papers to provide a realist framework in which to view the rose-tinted notion of sheep farming as a ‘Rural Idyll’.

Following the foot and mouth outbreak, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs require traceability through the recording of all movement of sheep and their birth, death and ear tagging in a holding register. For Rural Idyll 2, Catherine utilizes this format in a light box work that refers to the sheep born in the week of the residency.

For the show Catherine is referencing the enduring popularity of ‘Rural Idyll’ type jigsaws which present an obvious disparity with the reality of livestock farming. Wall-mounted photographic jigsaws made from images shot over the course of the residency will be displayed alongside two jigsaws placed for visitors to the exhibition to complete.

As in her Uncertainties series of photographs Catherine continues to explore the boundaries between still life and landscapes in the exhibition with video work, which was shot close-up and with a fixed view point. The work serves to emphasise the changes in season from the residency to the exhibition; bringing the livestock, landscape and soundtrack recorded in March to a summer audience. Presented for viewing on personal DVD players on a low brick shelf, people will be able to experience the work as it was created on the farm by lying on their bellies.

View exhibition poster.
View Catherine's project diary.

In 2010 work from both Uncertainties and In Proximity series were selected to be shown in the treatment rooms of Shine Holistic, London. The interaction between each image and the space it occupied was vital to the success of this piece - the function of each room influenced both the selection and reading of the images. Serene landscapes from the Uncertainties series were placed in massage areas and more flowing, dynamic photographs were exhibited in the shiatsu room. In the counselling room there was a distant vista of the city of London and to echo this, a triptych of the ‘cityscapes’ of In Proximity was placed by the window The exhibition received very positive feedback from both clients and staff.

Series description:

In 2006 Catherine led View Finder, a privately financed project commissioned by Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust. Situated at the new Cancer Unit, Old Church Hospital in Romford, Essex. View Finder worked to latest research guidelines that recommend the use of large-scale landscape photographs to help reduce patient anxiety levels in health care settings.View Finder was a patient and staff led photography project. It started with a consultation process which determined that landscape views were the favourite theme amongst patients. Catherine talked with patients and staff to determine favourite English landscapes. Those were selected were photographed by Catherine on a large format camera for display in the unit. Where possible patients and their relatives accompanied Catherine to determine the exact location of their chosen view. Views chosen included Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, Hayle Beach, Cornwall, The Gower Peninsula and Norfolk Coast.

The final large scale photographs are permanently installed in the Cancer unit in stunning Perspex frames along with simple captions stating the place of the view, why it was chosen and the name of the person selecting it. These included Bocking, near Braintree “My favourite place”, The Suffolk Coast “Big skies, Sun on my face, Wind in my hair”, and Cley windmill, Norfolk “Very beautiful always relaxes me when I see it”. The pictures are also used to aid signposting throughout the department.