As The Far Orchard comes into its fourth year, here is an update on our work so far as well as an introduction to the project for those unfamiliar with it.
The Far Orchard is artist-led network of over 100 individuals, groups and organisations who care for apple trees as ‘pollinators’ of a dispersed orchard. A rethinking of the traditional apple orchard where all trees grow together on a single area of land. The Far Orchard creates an orchard that is distributed across Banchory and further afield with individual trees being ‘hosted’ in private gardens, schools, care homes and allotments for example. Bringing people into closer observation, engagement and understanding of the relationships, conditions and cycles between species and seasons, growth and harvest that need to exist for continuing thriving and sustainability.
The Far Orchard offers varied encounters including an artist-led programme and seasonal programme that reflect the diversity of experience when tending to an apple tree. The project includes monthly newsletters, pruning workshops, charcoal making workshops and many more!
The annual artist-led programme invites an artist to contribute to and deepen The Far Orchard network. This year we were delighted to welcome artist Mel Shand who will be working with us for two years. Mel’s first body of work ‘A Portrait of The Far Orchard’ is focused on connections between people and their trees and invites the host network to have their portrait taken. The portraits will be showcased at the Barn in June 2025. In 2023-24 Caitlin Dick delved into the world of pollinators to explore networks of care through creative workshops, potluck lunches and experimental newsletters with stories told from the perspective of the honeybee.
Mel Shand, The Far Orchard artist for 2025. Image 2024. Courtesy of Mel Shand.
Our seasonal programme develops skills and knowledge sharing through practical workshops. Including for example; apple pressing, pruning, charcoal making from the long straight shoots and charcoal drawing outdoors.
A selection of Images from The Far Orchard Pruning and Charcoal workshops.
HOW TO JOIN
The Far Orchard Planting Day (2022) offered 100 new trees, since then we have continued to see the slow growth of the network through people joining with an existing tree. We encourage those joining to become part of the community, to share skills and experience and to take part in community events and creative activities.
If you have an existing tree and would like to join the network, visit The Far Orchard website. We look forward to hearing from you.
The Far Orchard history:
Developed by artists Robbie Coleman and Jo Hodges, in collaboration with the Barn. The Far Orchard was launched in 2021 as a community-based project focused on emancipatory forms of working together, systems change and collective care for ecological and social commons. The artist’s reflected on ways that creative practice could encourage informal networks of care seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, beyond the pandemic.
Plenty? festival:
Our annual festival ‘Plenty?’ emerged out of The Far Orchard and was developed between artists Jo Hodges, Robbie Coleman and the Barn. Plenty? reimagines a traditional harvest celebration and focuses on the idea of ‘degrowth’ in a consumerist world that demands more and more. At Plenty? festival, we aim to foster a joyful, open, and exploratory atmosphere where diverse perspectives and ways of thinking can come together. You can read more on Plenty? here.
The Far Orchard and Plenty? festival have been recognised by Culture for Climate Scotland as an inspiring example of sustainability outcomes achieved through artistic collaboration.
Resources
For the last 25 years, the Barn has presented a rich and diverse cultural programme. Many artists have used our building, Wild Garden, Walled Garden and the connecting allotments as a site of experimentation and thinking for arts and ecology. Long, sustained relationships with renowned artists such as John Newling and Newton Harrison, Helen Smith and Maja Zećo, have helped our organisation to develop and lead the conversation around arts in rural environments in the 21st century. The Far Orchard project responds and connects to a rich history of art orchard projects. If you want to know and learn more about other projects of this kind, here are a few resources listed below:
- Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison Knowle West project
- Portable Orchard 1972-73
- Dundee Urban Orchard project (Jonathan Baxter and Sarah Gittins)
- Annie Lord Neighbouring Orchard. Art Walk Projects (Edinburgh)
- Common Ground’s Apple Day
- Anne-Marie Culhane
- Donald Urquhart, Alexander Hamilton and poet Gerry Loose .Midpark Psychiatric Hospital in Dumfries.
