The Rural (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art)

An investigation through texts, interviews, and documentation of the complex relationship between the urban, the rural, and contemporary cultural production.

What, and where, is “the Rural”? From the rocks that break a farmer's plough on a field in Japan to digital infrastructures that organize geographically dispersed interests and ambitions, vast parts of our lives are still connected and dependent on resources, production, and infrastructures located within rural geographies, and the rural remains a shared cultural space. This anthology offers an urgent and diverse cross-section of rural art, thinking, and practice, with writings that consider ways in which artists respond to the socioeconomic divides between the rural and the urban―from reimagined farming practices and food systems to architecture, community projects, and transnational local networks. Edited by three artists who have been working within rural situations and communities for the last twenty years, this anthology is formed as a document, tool, and navigation device for future artistic practice in which “the rural” is filtered through a lens sharpened by an audience-based model of art that practices from within the culture it addresses.

Artists surveyed include
Lara Almarcegui, Lina Bo Bardi, Ruth Ewan, Forensic Architecture, Amy Franceschini, Fernando García-Dory, Grizedale Arts, Sigrid Holmwood, Huit Façettes, Brian Jungen, M12, Renzo Martens, Lala Meredith-Vula, Grace Ndiritu, OHO Group, Robert
Smithson, Rirkrit Tiravanja, Andrea Zittel, Stephen Willats, Bedwyr Williams, Franciska Zólyom

Writers include Homi K. Bhabha, Okwui Enwezor, Hal Foster, Freeyad Ibrahim, Julia Kristeva, Henri Lefebvre, Marco Marcon, Georgy Nikich, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Paul O'Neill, Mike Pearson, Doina Petrescu, Tomasz Rakowski, Natalie Robertson, Marco Scotini, Vandana Shiva, Monika Szewczyk, David Teh, Colin Ward, Grit Weber, Stephen Wright