1st Edition

Cultures of the Countryside Art, Museum, Heritage, and Environment, 1970-2015

By Veronica Sekules Copyright 2018
    298 Pages
    by Routledge

    298 Pages
    by Routledge

    Cultures of the Countryside examines the relationship between the museum and the micro-cultures of the countryside. Offering an exploration of museums and heritage projects in the UK that have attempted to introduce new ways of engagement between localities, objects, and people, this book considers how museums, heritage initiatives, and art projects have dealt with pressing local and global socio-political issues relating to the environment and rural life, including changing demographics and rural practices, local environmental concerns, and global climate activism.



    Providing a thorough examination of the representation of competing histories, visions and politics, Sekules asks whether museums and heritage projects can engage actively in shaping cultures, as well as reflecting them. At the core of the analysis is an examination of the findings from a project in the UK’s East Anglia, ‘The Culture of the Countryside’, from which emerged themes closely bound to different countryside landscapes, peoples and heritage.



    Aimed at practitioners and students alike, Cultures of the Countryside provides a unique insight into the roles of the museum and heritage projects in rural and environmental issues in the recent past, whilst also offering perspectives and recommendations for the future.

    Introduction





    Chapter 1: Countrification



    Country and City



    From Preservation to Protection to Campaigning for the Countryside



    World Down to Earth



    Protecting the Local



    Moving to the Country



    What does the Countryside Mean to You?



    Not the Middle of Nowhere?





    Chapter 2: Nostalgia, Art, and Folk Life



    Museum and Mechanisation



    Collections and Audiences



    Nostalgia for the Working Horse



    Folk-like in the Museum



    Folk Culture: Survival and Revival



    Artefacts and Folk





    Chapter 3: Heritagisation and the ‘Open Air’



    Public-Private Stewardship of Nature-Culture



    Open Air Heritage and Democratisation



    Landscape and Heritagisation



    Interpretation



    In the Field



    Little Ouse Headwaters Project



    Stewardship and the Working Landscape





    Chapter 4: Education and the Countryside



    The School in the Countryside



    Children’s Countryside Knowledge



    Environment Education and the Countryside



    The Museum and Countryside Education



    Outdoor Learning in the Countryside



    Harmony and Subversion in the Forest



    Education and Artists in the Countryside





    Chapter 5: Global Village



    BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) Cultural Politics in the Countryside



    Norfolk, Suffolk, and Papua New Guinea



    Another Way of Learning



    Middlesbrough Haka



    Artist as Ethnographer



    Globalising Village Connections



    From ‘Cosmopolitan Contamination’ to Invasive Alien Species





    Chapter 6: At the Edge of the Farm



    Diversity of Farms



    On the Edge of the Farm



    Calamities and Creative Consequences



    ‘More about Human Intellect than Human Muscle’



    Images of Farming



    The Farm and the Artist-Ethnographer



    The Museum

    Biography

    Veronica Sekules was formerly Deputy Director and Head of Education and Research at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, UK, after an early career start in the environment movement and as a curator and writer. She is now Director of GroundWork Gallery in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, a new space dedicated to art and the environment.