The Sheffield Wheat Experiment

The Sheffield Wheat Experiment re-imagines alternative grain economies through hand growing, harvesting and processing a population wheat for and of Sheffield. Through understanding the impacts of industrialisation on our daily bread, this artwork reconnects people to land and seed exploring systems that embody new values which make our food more than just a commodity. Seeking to counter industrial processes and mindsets we embrace the culture in agriculture to explore what we may have lost. 

The work, just like the wheat that is growing, changes and evolves over time. In the first instance, it is a collective attempt to come to terms with our current, deeply broken food system and grain economy by re-discovering skills, tools and ways in which wheat was grown before it’s industrialisation. But like much of my practise, it has become just as much about making space to sit with the loss & grief. To create space and time for a different kind of dialogue, one in which we can step back and notice the governing, economic, technological & social infrastructures that dominate and shape our thinking and doing.

An invitation to…. care, share, tend, notice, connect, challenge, change.