About Farmwork
Farmwork is an art/life practice that focuses on living holistically and creatively. It includes an emphasis on local thinking and working, collaboration and community, and creative spiritual development. Summerwork is yearly workshop/retreat that takes place in rural Wisconsin at the home and studio of Douglas Rosenberg and Li Chiao-Ping. Much of the farmwork project springs from this week-long convergence of artists in the first week of August. The philosophical background of Farmwork is far-reaching, but is inspired by the work of artists such as Alan Kaprow and historical moments including Black Mountain College and other collaborative projects.
The Place
The Farm is the home and studio of visual artist Douglas Rosenberg and Choreographer Li Chiao-Ping. It is also an intentional space that has been opened to artists and communities from around the world to engage in a hybrid blend of art/life practice that is designed to be both generative and thoughtfully contemplative.
Farming is the working metaphor for an approach to art-making that is seasonal, local, sustainable and based in ideas about community and collaboration. The Farm is intended to be an open space that supports artists in the process of framing a practice that is workable and sustainable for each individual and to provide mentoring toward that goal. Above all, it is a process-oriented philosophy that stresses both the sharing of resources and ideas.
The Retreat
Summerwork @ The Farm is a fluid, process oriented retreat/workspace that is open to anyone wishing to participate in a focused, reflective, supportive and creative environment in rural Wisconsin. It is a non-genre specific working environment in which there are no hard and fast boundaries, rather, porous membranes of artistic practice that welcome overlap and stresses mentoring and collaboration. Essentially, it is a retreat that offers creative, unfettered time without expectations, within an intentional community of (usually) 10-12 artists of all disciplines who come from around the world and locally as well. It is about creating a friendly, supportive community in which participants have the opportunity to interact with other artists, try out new ideas, share their work and ideas with others and cook and eat long artful meals together from an organic garden. We support a hybrid art/life practice. Summerwork @ The Farm is set within the rolling hills of Oregon, Wisconsin, near Madison. The Farm includes a performance space, art studio, wood shop, multi-media lab and organic garden on 5 acres surrounded by farmland. The program provides a resource of time and space for artists to remove themselves from day to day necessities and reflect upon the creative process that is an essential catalyst for artistic development. Each day begins with a yoga class, followed by a discussion and then by time for individual or group work. the day unfolds organically from there, with mentoring sessions, walking meditations, work time, etc. We re-group in the evenings to cook a meal from the garden and talk about the days events.
The History
Farmwork is a philosophy that is centered in living one's life creatively and holistically. Greatly inspired by the work of artists and thinkers such as Allan Kaprow and spaces like Black Mountain College, Farmwork is rooted in the idea that Art and Life can be one in the same, a hybrid practice, and that drawing distinctions between the two is unnecessary and often arbitrary. In addition, the philosophy of Farmwork emphasizes living one's life in a locally centered way; whether it be by eating garden-grown vegetables or creating work that responds to one's immediate environment. It is also a philosophy that is fluid and open to change.
Summerwork
The garden is both a practical undertaking and a metaphor for the practice of Farmwork as well. Each May one begins to prepare the garden for the coming season. It is a kind of meditation in which one’s focus begins to change from thinking to doing, in which the physical exertion that accompanies tilling, digging, preparing the soil causes the body to change as well. It is a physical manifestation of spring and the exertion that is evident in plant and animal life at the change of seasons. In the case of Farmwork, there is a practical element as well. The garden is intended to feed the participants of Summerwork @ The Farm during the first week of August as well as a myriad of other people who share the bounty throughout the summer. It is a metaphor for a very simple process in which one sow’s the seeds of one’s desires and tends those seeds as they grow to fruition, a delicate balance of nurturing and distance which mirrors the mentoring process which is part of Farmwork. As plants in the garden grow, they become identifiable, they tend toward their nature and away from what is not. Farmwork is a space that, like a garden is meant to nurture artists toward their own identity through sowing intentionality and providing conceptual sustenance.