Date/Time
Date - Wednesday, August 30, 2017
6:30 pm-7:30 pm
The Art of the Rural: In Conversation with Matthew Moore
Wednesday, August 30, 6:30 pm
All welcome; free admission
The Art Gallery of Guelph is pleased to welcome Matthew Moore – multimedia artist, farmer, and food activist – for a dialogue about the intersection of art and agriculture. With a social practice that engages issues related to land, food, and sustainability, Moore will speak to his use of documentary tactics, land-based installation, and community engagement as means to deepen agricultural knowledge while increasing consciousness of our relationship to the land and food production.
As cities and their corresponding agricultural hinterlands grow both ever larger and ever more disconnected, Moore’s projects such as Rotations: Moore Estates (above) and the Digital Farm Collective – a global database documenting cultivated plant growth – insert the land back into public consciousness and recentre our conversations about sustainable practices.
In addition to thought-provoking discussion about the social impact of art, attendees will enjoy local organic produce provided courtesy of Guelph-based Ignatius Farm, an organization committed to Community Shared Agriculture – an alternative food access and distribution method linking customers directly to the farm.
This presentation and the Art Gallery of Guelph’s LAND Studio residency are presented in conjunction with the Musagetes Foundation.
Based in Phoenix, Moore’s work involves a combination of social practice, large scale earthworks and built environments meant to instil new insight as well as social change. Recent exhibitions include solo projects and commissions for the Phoenix Art Museum, the Speed Museum, the Sundance Film Festival, the Walker Art Center, MassMoCA, the World Congress of Soil Science in Korea, and Nuit Blanche Toronto, and he has been featured in publications including Art Forum, Art in America, Art Lies, Metropolis, Dwell, and Architecture.
Matthew Moore, Awakening Seed School, Phoenix, Arizona, 2014