“Agroecology is sustainable farming that works with nature. Ecology is the study of relationships between plants, animals, people, and their environment – and the balance between these relationships. Agroecology is the application of ecological concepts and principals in farming.”
If we look back to farming in pre-industrial times and then to those who have pushed back against monocropping and broad acre farming as one impact of the industrial revolution then we see that agro-ecology is pure intelligence and commonsense.
Echo Valley Landscape Charcoal on arches paper Artist: Peter Breen
It is a respectful undertaking that honours and listens to the landscape – “to country” – to working with it in harmony. There is a reason why certain plants grow and why certain plants won’t. I am not a farmer or a botanist but I am learning through what Randal and Juanita Breen are doing in the Goomburra Valley that soil is life and that the life that has been reduced and almost annihilated by industrialisation in so much of our “wide brown land” can be resurrected. I have also learnt that being “patient, attentive observers” of the landscape – through the biggest and smallest lens – will lead to new intimacy with the life that sustains and emerges. It is much spiritual as it is a scientific discipline.
As part of the Echo Valley Field Day on August 31, 2024 Randal and Juanita will be celebrating 10 years into their 100 year agroecology vision for their landscape, in their space Goomburra on Bungalung unceded country. As part of that day I will be running two printmaking workshops – where participants will walk some of the landscape at the farm, select handfulls of plant specimens and learn how to produce mono-prints/monotypes of them. Taking the farmer’s line that “there are no weeds” – and he will explain that on the day – we will be celebrating the beauty of these “weeds” as living organisms through “patient, attentive obervation” and monotype printing. I am one of a group of artists who will be engaged in organising art making on the day. Sam Eyles, Laura Pascoe and Sarah Seminutin all from Vacant Assembly in Brisbane will be coordinating a range of workshops and improv art making througout the day. It will be a wonderful day of engagement and celebration and you can sign up via http://www.echovalley.com.au
These are a few examples of monotypes I have made from plants gathered from the landscape at Goomburra on the Echo Valley farm.
Renewal – Charcoal, ink, guache on arches paper 2023 Artist: Peter Breen
Peteskibreen's Blog 