Cultivation Field 8th - 22nd June 2012 3rd Floor, 42 Market Place, Reading, RG1 2DE and The Keep, 571 Oxford Road, Reading, RG30 1HL Opening: 7th June 2012 17.00-19.00 at 42 Market Place and 19:00-21:00 at The Keep Open hours: 8th June 12:00-16:00; 9th to 22nd June 12:00-18:00 (42 Market Place is closed on Tuesdays) Third Thursday event on 21st June 18:00-21:30 at The Keep, presentations by Sarah Lewison, Alexandra MyGlynn and other to be announced Cultivation Field explores plant and land cultivation through diverse art practices. Plant life could be considered a low-tech material, because it is vegetation, but in the second decade of the twenty-first century plant life is in constant production as part of consumerist high tech industry. Cultivation Field looks at the cracks in land cultivation systems, collective engagement within local communities, plant based objects and methods of production. Included in this exhibition is a film work about Fritz Haeg’s Edible Estates project in New York. The film tells a historic story of land cultivation on Manhattan Island in relation to contemporary collective engagement with local communities. Brook & Black’s work Plot 16: the Fermenting Room; was developed for their Modern Art Oxford’s allotment residency at Rose Hill. Here brook & black grew hops on a frame that replicated MOA’s building, which was once a brewery. Adi Gelbart’s film Vermin is a vegetable sci-fi. Pil & Galia Kollectiv’s Asparagus: A Horticultural Ballet shows the moment when their dancers dressed as asparagus enter the park to contemplate 1950’s garden furniture. Sarah Lewison’s work with And, And, And on the Monsanto hearings is included in Documenta 13. Sarah Lewison will be talking presenting this work as part of Cultivation Field exhibition. A Rachael Champion installation will be in the grounds of The Keep’s garden. Caitlin Parker’s photographs are images taken at Chernobyl in 2007 where plant life has grown in formerly human occupied space. Julian Perry’s paintings of allotment sheds at Manor Gardens Allotments are reminders of the evictions that took place to make way for this year’s Olympic site. Reading as a town was once a site of much plant cultivation. The company Sutton Seeds was started there in 1806. One of the exhibition venues is close to the area in which Sutton Seeds was situated until the 1960’s. Participating artists: Robyn Appleton, Tom Baskeyfield, Shameela Beeloo, Rebecca Beinart, Camilla Berner, brook & black, Rob Carter, Rachael Champion, Andrew Dodds, Maria Deegan, Adi Gelbart, Fritz Haeg, Maria Hofstadler, Tom Ingate, Ulrika Jansson, Pil & Galia Kollectiv, Rosalie Kim, Gayle Chong Kwan, Sarah Lewison, Alexandra McGlynn, Stéphanie Nava, Raquel Estrada-Nora, Phil Newcombe, Francesca Owen, Caitlin Parker, Julian Perry, Minna Pöllänen, Janette Porter, Sneha Solanki, Stih & Schnock, Jo Thomas, Carly Troncale, Charlie Tweed, Jane Cradock-Watson, Elizabeth Wewiora Cultivation Field is curated by Kate Corder who is a practise based PhD candidate in the Art Department at University of Reading. The exhibition follows on from the Cultivation Field Postgraduate Symposium that took place in September 2011, also organised by Kate Corder. The Cultivation Field exhibition is support by Arts Council England and the Earley Charity, Reading. Additional support comes from the Art Department at the University of Reading, The Jelly, Open hand Open Space, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Sutton Seeds and Laura’s Organics. Cultivation Field Kate Corder cultivationfield@gmail.com www.cultivationfield.org