Radical Rural

About this event

Follow in the footsteps of radical artists and activists whose work embodies the spirit of England’s rural landscapes, summons the ghosts of nature past, and questions who really owns England.

Explore displays ranging from the protest song of a folk musician, to the physical manifestation of a folk tale; from radical mapping and campaign banners, to artefacts marking small acts of service.

Pick up your free trail guide at reception.

The cast of Radical Rural

• Our trail opens with the Open Spaces Society and its general secretary Campaigner Kate. We welcome back artist duo Somewhere-Nowhere with Sense of Here.

• We say hello to our colleague Tom Oliver and his Nature-Centric Catalyst friends, including local artist Anna Dillon.

• We join The Stars Are for Everyone and meet a spirit brought to us by makers The Lost Giants and storyteller Lisa Schneidau.* 

• We thank Marion Shoard for a lifetime of campaigns, Guy Shrubsole for his hunting out Who Owns England, and Materiality for helping him to map it.

• We join the Fobney Marshians as they stomp their way into Rural Reading.

• We add to our library with writing from Nicola Chester and cartoon campaigning by Kate Evans. We reconnect with Jim Hindle’s protest story.

• Some of our stories include archive items from CPRE. These help us to examine the Countryside Code.

• We complement further CPRE archives with artwork by Man in the Woods.

• We join the Oxford Real Farming Conference where we meet Herdy Shepherd James Rebanks, shepherd’s wife Helen Rebanks, and the amazing folks of the Landworkers’ Alliance and La Via Campesina. We go elsewhere in Oxford to find JC Niala on her 1918 Allotment.

• We hear the tuneful Three Acres and a Cow, remember English Folk Dance and Song Society legend Roy Palmer, and discover the ‘gently dormant’ but always defiant Land Justice Network.

• We encounter Sam Wallman (check out his Comic about Land) and the other creative minds behind a previous intervention on the commons. The brilliant historian Katrina Navickas brings things up to date.

• We join Nick Hayes and his friends from Right to Roam and see examples of their concept of Wild Service.

• Artist Becky Lyon takes us on a deep dive into soil and close by we encounter Wild Card in the woods.

• We take a journey to the fences of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp. We don’t mention them in the trail but our Greenham friends at 101 Outdoor Arts are great. Plus, we’re looking forward to a new Greenham film called Gentle, Angry Women.

• Working with Meadow Arts, artist Leah Gordon brings us a new folk history. We share South Downs viewpoints with photographer Anne Katrin-Purkiss.

• We welcome back our old friend Andy Parker whose gates alongside wagons he has worked with in the past. You can read more about his connection with gates here.

• Our trail ends with our own podcast Absolute Units where we’ve been having deep dive discussions on many Radical Rural topics.

*Lisa kindly shared some images with us and we thank her. We reproduced one image that she took in our trail, which features a drummer. Another image that we used shows Lisa hugging a giant. This image was taken by Noah Breslin. We got swept up in the moment and forgot to thank Noah on our interpretation panel. So, a big thank you Noah for capturing such a lovely moment.

Hear more stories from Radical Rural

In the months ahead, we’ll be releasing new episodes of our podcast Absolute Units featuring many of the artists, writers, and scholars who feature throughout the trail. Listen to specific episodes below, or explore the full back catalogue by searching ‘Absolute Units’ wherever you get your podcasts.

Katrina Navickas

• A Radical History of the Commons
• Rural Riots, Raves, and Robin Hood

Man in the Woods

• We Were All Rural Once
• The Rural Art of Dog Poo Posters

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