Farmers have been a recurring subject in art, perhaps more often in the background of a religious painting, bringing an edifying moral to the scene. Their everyday lives have been the subject of poetry, including of course that of Robert Burns. The Impressionists must be one of the foremost groups of painters to have addressed farming, probably as a result of getting out of Cities and being interested in the everyday and the visible rather than the sublime.
Sylvia Grace Borda’s project Farm Tableaux is a collaboration with Google Streetview photographer John M Lynch. We get a different view of farming because although the image presented to you is framed when you start, the ability to pan, zoom and move around the space enables to you explore the Turkey Shed at Medomist Farm, or the Farm Shop at Zaklan Heritage Farm in a very different way. You start in the Farm Shop but you can move out into the market garden plot and then onto the street – it seems to integrate with Google Streetview so suddenly you’re moving house by house through suburban BC. If you back track you can go back into the farm and back into the shop. If you explore the market garden you can find Sylvia taking a (different) picture. Her face is blurred out according to the Streetview conventions.
Check it out at http://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/programme/exhibitionsandprojects/sylviagraceborda/sylviagraceborda-streetview.html . Give yourself some time to explore.
Fascinating.