The Learned Pig

Art – Thinking – Nature – Writing

Tag: agriculture

  • Revisiting a Geography of Hope

    Revisiting a Geography of Hope

    To be a farmer, at any point in history, means you grow food. You steward the land – soil, water, air, energy, plants, and animals – and make a living from its increase. It seems simple, at least in purpose, if not in practice: Grow good food. Now, in the twenty-first century, awareness is growing…

  • Rural Art is…

    Rural Art is…

    This is an extract from Myvillages, ‘Rural Art Is…’, in The Rural, eds. Kathrin Böhm and Wapke Feenstra (London: Whitechapel Gallery/Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2019)   If you don’t like monocultures – whether in art or agriculture or elsewhere – you will like this book. The Rural questions and frustrates the current cultural hegemony…

  • Editorial: Fields

    Editorial: Fields

    In May 1982, American artist Agnes Denes began to transform a two acre empty plot at the foot of the World Trade Center into her work Wheatfield – A Confrontation, Battery Park Landfill. In the prior months, truck loads of dirty landfill had been dumped on the site, consisting of rubble, dirt, rusty pipes, automobile…

  • Open Call: Fields

    Open Call: Fields

      *** Fields is currently closed for submissions. We will reopen again soon. You can sign up to our newsletter for updates. ***     In May 1982, American artist Agnes Denes began to transform a two acre empty plot at the foot of the World Trade Center into her work Wheatfield – A Confrontation,…

  • Clouting

    Clouting

    December   It takes two years off their life, if they have lambs when they’re shearlings, if they’re going to live on the fells.   Not much of the thin wintery daylight filters through the half-open door, and the straw on the floor lends a glow to the place. The barn is chilly and has…

  • Carnevale

    Carnevale

    On the morning of April 21st, my phone showed several missed calls. My colleague Cath had been burgled in the early hours. We spoke briefly as she waited for the police to arrive, and then a text came through, ‘The car’s gone, I’m catching the bus.’ I text back, ‘Forget it, we can postpone’. She…

  • What is it like to be a pig?

    What is it like to be a pig?

    Most people know little about the characters and habits of the farm animals that live around us, often hidden away from view in large industrial sheds. What are they like, how do they live? Through careful observation we can learn more. Take, for example pigs. Pigs are quite like dogs – friendly, playful, tactile, really…

  • How do we improve the lives of pigs?

    How do we improve the lives of pigs?

    Ever since the idea of ‘intensifying’ pig production began to be discussed there has been a lively debate surrounding the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of taking pigs from outside and housing them indoors. Abigail Woodsi has written an historical account of the development of intensive pig production where she has drawn on records to display the…

  • Pig Dreams Pig Life

    Pig Dreams Pig Life

    In some dreams we are dead. It is never a surprise. Life doesn’t last long after all. Someone did ask, what is a life? Does it feel like something? Is it solid or a shadow? Comfortable? Forgiveable? ‘A pig is an unlikely bird’, grunted a pig. It couldn’t speak the answers and it wanted to…

  • VIDEO: Pigs at Play

    VIDEO: Pigs at Play

        This is part of CARNEVALE, a collaborative art-science project that explores animal welfare questions and the enthusiasm of pigs for investigative play. Click to see the rest.      

  • In pictures: Objects designed for pigs

    In pictures: Objects designed for pigs

    Popcorn Piñata         Pig Kerplunk     Melon Mines     House of Many Doors     Fruit Machine     Apple Barrel         This is part of CARNEVALE, a collaborative art-science project that explores animal welfare questions and the enthusiasm of pigs for investigative play. Click to see…