Agri/Culture 2.0 202X

1. Introduction 1.1 Brief

The primary objective of the research was to review how Kestle Barton might develop public programming in alignment with Arts Council England’s new ‘Let’s Create’ strategy.

The research also set to address a second objective—to discover how Kestle Barton could more deeply integrate its cultural programming with the fifty-six acres of agricultural land that surround the gallery. This second objective should be understood in the context of Kestle’s long standing desire to increase the level of food production on its land by implementing a new system of restoration agriculture.

1.2 Executive summary

Our proposal consists of three main elements:

•  Audiences become stakeholders in a new participatory land-based economy centred around Kestle Barton
• Artist-led activity interconnects the land-based economy and the cultural programme
• Delivery of all the elements are facilitated by digital augmentationKestle Barton is a cultural institution situated within a fifty-six acre estate of productive agricultural land. Our proposal is that Kestle’s audience are not only invited to become stakeholders in cultural production at Kestle (in line with the aims of ACE’s Let’s Create strategy), but also to become stakeholders in a local participatory land-based economy where livelihoods are created and supported through the commercial production of food, thereby entwining the cultural production of the gallery with the agricultural experimentation on the land.Carefully selected artists will envision and mediate exchanges between the different audiences and stakeholders effectively blurring the lines between cultural production and food production, creating a new third form which we are simply calling agri/culture. In short, Kestle Barton will be opening up its land resource for meaningful audience participation on a grand scale through artistic means.The proposal implies complex relationships between multiple stakeholders, audiences, land- use regimes, and cultural production. Innovative digital solutions will be engineered in partnership with a local company specialised in developing software tools for restoration agriculture to help Kestle Barton manage and deliver the programme, while simultaneously creating new rich digital experiences for new national and international audiences.