A Creative Imagining

Project description

Only one percent of Irish farms grow vegetables, with dairy and livestock being the most common agricultural practices. Food production and farming provide jobs and have important cultural value. Transitioning into other forms of agriculture is therefore a complex issue. Addressing the need for change requires a sensitivity to the farmers and communities involved, which is something Creative Imagining sought to do with the use of an embedded artist.

The embedded artist approach sought to generate new ways of thinking, helping the community to develop alternative perspectives on future farming in Ireland. Embedded artist Lisa Fingleton listened to the farming community and supported them to share their thoughts and concerns voiced through events like the Creative Climate Wall, as well as several public events. The embedded artist focused on the 10 farm families participating in the project, supporting them to imagine a low-carbon future for farmers in the Dingle Peninsula and to identify possible solutions.

Key aims for the project

• Creating a shift in attitudes within the farming community regarding their role in addressing Ireland’s carbon emissions.
• Supporting the farming community in the transition to less carbon-intensive methods and supporting biodiversity.
• Using creative approaches to engage the wider community in the challenges that the farmers face.
• Ensuring reflective learning and evaluation. One of the unique aspects of the project was its evaluation methods. Initial data was collected based on questions such as: ‘What are your expectations and what will be challenging for you?’ Additional information was collected during the project, instead of leaving it until after it ended.

Key activities

Visiting participating farmers

Lisa Fingleton, the embedded artist, visited the 10 participating farmers several times. She spent time with each of them, listening, walking, drawing and taking photos. She also engaged in farming activities such as picking apples and feeding animals.

‘Working closely with the farmers on the Dingle Peninsula over the last year and visiting each farm several times has been a real privilege. It has given me a unique opportunity as an artist, to understand their deep connection with the land and their growing concerns about climate change. Together, through drawing and film, we have creatively explored their current experiences and their ideas for the future in terms of taking climate action and protecting biodiversity.’

Lisa Fingleton

Creative Climate Wall at the Ploughing Championships

The National Ploughing Championships is an Irish agricultural show and ploughing contest. It is also Europe’s largest outdoor event. For the championships in 2022, held in Ratheniska, 277,000 visitors attended. As part of this event, Lisa created a 33-metre-long Creative Climate Wall with members of the project team and participating farmers – a drawing to spark the imagination about future farming in Ireland on a public-facing wall at the championships. On the first day of the championships, bypassers saw a 33-metre blank wall of canvas with the words ‘How can we farm sustainably?’ asking them to write their suggestions on cards, which were later drawn on the wall by the embedded artist.

The wall aimed to activate imaginations within the farming community around what farmers can do to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. The wall also brought climate discussions to a broader agricultural audience.

‘For each thing they said, I drew a picture of the future they saw for farming. The Climate Wall enabled people to see what they haven’t seen before, and then feel that they want to protect that.’

Lisa Fingleton

The wall generated climate conversations beyond the championships, as people could relate to the drawings. Through the wall, Lisa drew a story about the potential of farming in Ireland. People could see the change that reflected the farmer’s voices. It was a positive and fun activity and the drawings also helped to connect the issues and solutions.

‘Before I started drawing, it was hard to move beyond the negative. Farmers were expressing their frustration about the current systems. That was all we got until we started drawing people’s ideas. And it changed because we asked them for suggestions and ideas. The first thing I drew was hoops, and fewer hoops to jump through. And they were like, that’s exactly what we want.’

Lisa Fingleton

After the Ploughing Championships, Creative Ireland arranged for the wall to be transported to the Irish Museum of Modern Art where it was displayed as part of the Earth Rising Festival 2022.

Films about the project to engage the wider public

Lisa Fingleton and Chris Garret interviewed farmers and took footage at each participating farm as well as the Climate Wall and developed several films from this: Voices from the Field (portrait of the 10 farmers), A Creative Imaginings (short documentary), The Future is in the Fields (short film on the Creative Climate Wall, see video below).

They also produced an interview with embedded artist Lisa Fingleton at the end of the project.

Voices from the Field was premiered in a full house at the Blasket Centre (Dingle) and was screened at the Crawford Art Gallery (Cork), VISUAL (Carlow), IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) and will be broadcast on national television.

Other key activities included:

• Eight familiarisation trips to sustainable farms for the participating farmers and the project team to learn about ideas and options for sustainable farming.
• Workshops on climate change and farming and creative climate conversations at the Ploughing Championships.
• Farmers Forum held as part of the Dingle Food Festival.
• Three learning briefs – ‘The Experience of the Participating Farmers’, ‘The Experience of the Project Team’ and ‘The Creative Climate Wall’.

See an overview of all activities in the project evaluation tables.

Sustainability issues

Reducing carbon and improving biodiversity

The project aimed to support the farming community in Dingle Peninsula in transitioning to less carbon-intensive methods, as well as methods that will sequester carbon and support biodiversity. Through practical and creative approaches the projects sought to widen the understanding that the farming community faces to diversify and transition into new farming practices. It aimed to create a supportive environment for the farmers to be heard and allow them to step away from defending an often-critical image in the media, into a space where they were invited along on the journey of transformation. After the project, all the farmers said that the project had:

• Increased their understanding of climate action issues and the importance of local food.
• Convinced them of the need to protect and promote biodiversity.
• Demonstrated the positive role of creativity and art, particularly in climate action.
• Led them to take action. Actions included reducing their use of chemicals, exploring organic practices, planting native trees and hedging, identifying options for using local wool, and producing renewable energy on their land. All of the participating farmers want the group of farmers to continue and include the wider community in the work as well.

‘We live in very remote places, like many of the people in Scotland – how do we make ourselves more resilient? And how do we make our food systems more sustainable in a changing climate?’

Lisa Fingleton  

Public engagement: bringing the farming sector into the climate conversation

Due to agriculture’s important role in transitioning into less carbon-intensive methods, and the sector sometimes being hesitant to change, farmers often get negative press in the media. This works against bringing them on board and bringing on action, which is what this project sought to do. Outcomes and evaluations based on the project do show an increased engagement with climate change within the farming community:

• All the farmers said that the project broadened their thinking and increased their awareness of climate action and its relation to local food production. It convinced them to protect biodiversity, and many decreased their use of artificial fertiliser, while some explored organic methods, planted trees or installed solar power. They all said creativity had a positive role in engaging them to take action.
• As a result of the project, the Dingle Food Festival 2022 had a focus on farming and the project hosted a local food buffet to showcase the quality of the food grown by the farmers and others on the peninsula.
• Inspired by the project, one of the participating farmers joined the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association, and is active in working towards creating a wool co-op to avoid wool in Ireland getting dumped.
• As an outcome, the farmers were invited to the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2022 and 2023 to talk about change and the transition of farming. IMMA also organised a four day programme about the future of food as part of the Earth Rising Festival 2024 which was inspired by the project.
• The Government of Ireland tent at the Ploughing Championships 2023 screened the ‘Voices from the Field’ throughout the event.

Lessons, tips and advice

Lessons

• Lisa’s approach as an embedded artist was first and foremost to listen and visualise the farmer’s fears and hopes. Through this process, she experienced that the farmers felt listened to, creating a safe space to share thoughts and concerns and was key to developing new ways of thinking.

• The farmers were included in decisions around visits, workshops and activities as part of the project. This kind of inclusion and emphasis on active listening and visioning helped to engage farmers who would normally be cautious of taking part, due to an experience of being put into a bad light before the conversation had even begun.
• Another important aspect for the farming community to take part was due to Lisa’s background in farming, which created a foundation of mutual trust and understanding from the beginning.
• Working with a small group of 10 farmers worked well to create a sense of trust and build relationships, which is fundamental in creating change because the project team could monitor the impact more closely.
• The organisers commented that it would have been useful to conduct a baseline survey on public views on farming and climate change before the project started to determine how the wider community was impacted.
• The open call allowed for everyone to apply. However, it was hard to attract interest from farmers who had not yet considered any climate action or were not already engaged to some extent.
• To ensure that the project itself was run in an environmentally sustainable way, the project team and the participating farmers created a sustainability policy ensuring that sustainable travel, local food and zero waste were prioritised throughout.
• Allowing farmers to openly express their thoughts and spending time outside at their farms allowed for learning, change and action.
• Creativity helped to transform frustration about the difficult and conflicting issue of agriculture and sparked imagination for the future. Farmers highlighted the drawings as something that helped them imagine and pursue change.
• While the process was transformative and changed the farmers involved, it is difficult to say what the long-term implications are as they will take years to evolve.
• An important reflection was that a project like this provides tangible options for change without being too prescriptive. Creative Ireland was very flexible throughout the process, fully understanding the need to co-create the experience with farmers in order to support real change and action. The project team landed on an approach where they gave the farmers a wide range of options through visits to farms and places of inspiration as well.
• Embedded evaluation contributed positively to the project. Regular reflection and evaluation provided learning among the team and participants during the project. It was more challenging to assess the impact on the wider community who were not directly involved.
• The fact that the members of the project team, including artist Lisa Fingleton, were physically embedded in the community created a lot of trust.
• It was important to allow flexibility and time for listening and engaging with the community and shaping activities accordingly. Letting the projects be informed by the communities’ concerns allowed for much more meaningful activities and outcomes. It was also important to allow flexibility for the embedded artist to have time to create and reflect.
• The project noted the challenge of getting the media to engage with the inspirational stories of the farmers as the project evolved. However, Journal.ie interviewed Lisa and wrote an article about the project as part of their coverage of the National Ploughing Championship film. The film premiere was covered on the news of the national TV stations TG4 and RTE.

‘It helped the process of building trust, that they knew I came from a farming background myself. People were generally a bit sceptical of the idea of working with an artist and they couldn’t imagine that farming would have anything to do with art. It was about building trust.’

Lisa Fingleton

Recommendations/advice

• Develop a media strategy and hire a media person to ensure dissemination of learning and to build a community of interest around the work.
• Work with larger cultural institutions to showcase the work created and ensure that it reaches the intended audience.
• Dedicate time and resources to sharing learning and ensuring reach and embeddedness in local communities.
• Allocate the project manager enough time to focus on building trust, relationships and clear communication within the project. A project of this size should have a full-time project manager.
• Sustainable travel takes time. Make sure it is calculated into plans and resources.
• Ensure there is enough time and flexibility for the artist and participants to respond creatively to the process.
• Work with an embedded local community organisation to ensure long-term impact and continuation of activities.
• Funders need to consider resources for follow-up projects to build on the groundwork.
• The embedded evaluator should be independent and not a part of the project team. Read more about the learnings of the embedded evaluation in ‘The experience of the project team’ report (opens a PDF).

Partners and stakeholders

Dingle Hub

The project was led by Dingle Hub, a community workspace for artists, engineers, community organisers and more. By offering an office space for self-employed people and small businesses, the Hub aims to bring together creative practitioners into new collaborations that will improve life for people in the area.

Green Arts Initiative Ireland (GAII)

The Green Arts Initiative in Ireland is an extension of the Green Arts Initiative operated by Culture for Climate Scotland and aims to provide Irish arts organisations with the resources and support to help build a green Irish arts community.

MaREI

MaREI is the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine research and innovation at University College Cork. The Centre comprises over 220 researchers focusing on global challenges around the energy transition, climate action and the blue economy.

West Kerry Dairy Farmers Sustainable Energy Community

The West Kerry Dairy Farmers’ Sustainable Energy Community aims to build a community of sustainable, energy-efficient dairy farmers in West Kerry Ireland. They do so by exploring renewable energy sources, reducing costs and carbon emissions and being an example and sharing resources with other farming communities.

Lisa Fingleton

Lisa Fingleton was selected as the project’s embedded artist through an open call. She was interviewed by the project team, an independent assessor and local farmers. Her previous creative work as an artist in the area of local food and her background in farming were important reasons why she was chosen.

Project team

Catriona Fallon (GAII), project manager; Lisa Fingleton, embedded artist; Deirdre de Bhailis, Dingle Hub Manager; Clare Watson (MaREI), reflective learning and evaluation lead.

Creative Ireland

Creative Ireland is a programme supported by the Irish Government under the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. It is driven by the ambition of transforming people, places and communities through creativity. It does so through partnerships with local and national partners empowering people, organisations and governments to work together, share and spark ideas for action. Together with the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, it leads the Creative Climate Action Fund, which funded this project. The funding programme funds creative projects that build awareness around climate change and empower citizens to take action.

Funding

In July 2021 the project was awarded 180,660 euro from Creative Ireland. The Creative Ireland Programme and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications provided funding and support through the Creative Climate Action Fund, which supports creative, cultural and artistic projects that build awareness around climate change and empower citizens to make meaningful behavioural transformations.

The project also got financial support from the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Discover Programme, which focuses on building communities and empowering Irish people to shape the future through innovation.

‘The Dingle Hub, along with a partners in West Kerry Ireland, put it in an application to work with 10 farmers and to work with an embedded artist to discover ways in which farmers could be supported into new models for future farming while acknowledging the work that they’re doing already.’

Lisa Fingleton

Relevant links

Other videos you can watch on the project:

• A Creative Imagining, Corca Dhuibhne Inbuanaithe short doc
• Voices from the Field / Guthanna ón nGort trailer