Sodsanctum The earth holds many treasures. Nestled underfoot lie the strata of history; lost empires sediment with memories of lives lived and the detritus of those still struggling. Primal matter incubates and infects these hidden things with potency as rot and ruin coalesce. Wrought from dark clutches the remnants awake, vessels for thoughts forgotten, vital energies imbuing divinity upon odds and sods. In a caravan presenting itself as a sanctum or altar there are brightly painted vegetables, props, incense and sounds and the artist Robert Foster. He is bestowing vegetable objects upon his visitors, as sanctified charms or artefacts. Robert’s durational work invites visitors to enter throughout the day to observe his activity and periods of inactivity and receive their gift.

From two pm til sundown every hour Rosa Nussbaum will be in the Round Building waiting to tell you story of Mr Grooming and Dead Fox Man and the family of mice and our time at the farm. It's not very long and there are pictures. Alongside Rosa, Helen Savage exhibits an outcome from her time spent at a summer school where she had a studio space with other artists, the piece is entitled ‘Speculative dossier” Helen’s friend Anni Movsissyan will address food and politics through inviting visitors to attend an open discussion on the forms of violence that relate to food and the their connection to various social justice issues, with a focus on the local context of the farm and a conscious linking of the personal and political alongside historical, global and less visible perspectives.

Rikki Tarascas’ abstract paintings grew out of the search for a physical energetic freedom, understood through performance and the notion of synesthesia. His Mexican roots and the need to explore creative energy and emotion in a direct way through colour and dramatic juxtaposition of line and texture are also central. Film works have drawn upon a breadth of historical references, including the ideas of Antonin Artaud, the work of Marina Abromovich and their connection to Grotowski inspired drama exercises; designed to engage the students with their senses and to make them aware of ‘the moment’. A ‘re-active process’, ‘in action’, that Rikki reflects upon as “An opening up of space, that allows narrative to arrive according to what happened through process”.

1) legs a stride apart bending from the hip knees relaxed arms outstretched hands like rakes touch the earth and sweep either side of the plant at the same time then alternately and step to the side or come up and step to the side

2) crouching hands touching the earth hands like rakes claw between the plants simultaneously then alternately while crouching step to the side Lucy Gunning to Hazel Dowling

At the end of 1978 Toos Jeuken travelled on her bicycle from Holland and began farming here in Cuckfield. She grows organic, traditional, seasonal and outdoor fruit and field vegetables for local people and local whole-food shops. Her aim is to keep the soil in good condition. It rewards her with tasty, healthy and fresh produce, year after year. The autumn and winter crops stay in the field and are picked when ready or needed. Over the years she has tried to avoid using plastic packaging materials. Many a people have seen her with elastic bands around her wrists, which she use for bunching up veg. Come along and have a look at all the produce in the fields, now is a good time! Toos will tell you more, as she show’s you around.  

Occupying quiet corners around the farm, James Rickett’s collages are spun together with old drawings, media-imagery and other cut-up collages. Like an alchemist his process of creation follows logic, a childish logic; like when children rip legs of daddy long legs and scrawl old books with crayons. A friend left a note on his studio space and it read: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, But when I became a man, I put away childish things”

(1 Corinthians 3:11)

A greenhouse housing rampant nettles will provide a space for Joe Crowdy to share recent writing, including the essays Architectura Puttanesca, at Caspian Street Allotments and Queer Undergrowth. This work is born out of a visit he made earlier this year to an agricultural environment, near where he lives in South East London. He says: "Look behind the shed, around the compost heap, or underneath the branches of a neat bush, and you will find weeds in every garden. They are not only an ontological necessity for horticulture itself, but a real physical presence on the body of each individual plot. They are the armpits and pubic hair of the garden, the parts that get plucked out, shaved off or covered up. On human bodies, these parts that are so carefully concealed in the process of attraction (or in the name of hygiene) often paradoxically become the very focus of carnal desire. What if weeds were the sweat and fat and hair of the garden, waiting to be illicitly drooled over when no-one else is around?" Queer Undergrowth (2015) Rosa Farber will make a speech with the help of the audience. Please gather in the Round Building when the speech happens….

Two big carrots, too big to be taken seriously have taken root in ‘The New Field’. A work by Kosa Art. Their presence as sculptures imitating their smaller living counterparts, seeks to question the process of our own maturing and our reasons or preferences for being small and invisible in our environment. ‘Ideally I would like to dig a hole and dig myself in it so that only my head is visible…’ Following the Second World War a conspiracy emerged that animals had been employed to send out signals and communicate secret messages. Beginning with the absurdity of this myth and exploring themes of memory, time, folklore, place and movement Linda Laiva will don a headset and occupy a small corner amongst the vegetables in order to communicate with a vegetable from another field, in another country. One farm tomato will say to another ‘‘they are Illuminati for vegetables, only good ones''

For a long time Nick Thomson has been concerned with the fact that certain words have been mis-appropriated for the purposes of advertising and publicity. His first awareness of the theft of important words came with BEETLES - BEATLES, Rolling Stone - Rolling Stones, Christian to The Christians. What he has called ‘Final Awareness’ led to anger and creativity: The words 'Orange' and 'Blackberry', he believes, has led to a dangerous distortion, particularly in children's perception and a detachment from nature – he says “when they "ought" to be blackberrying to make apple and blackberry pie they are touching or thinking of a hand held and addictive, stress inducing device”. The final anger came from hearing on the radio that Google are planning an even bigger enterprise called ALPAHBET, which means they can beg steal and borrow and not return all the words in the world (included in the alphabet). The realisation that Art is the three middle letters of Earth prompted Nick to borrow the fame of the NHS (A+E department). A+E arm bands and the fame of accident and emergency have been diverted or mis-appropriated to advertise Laines Organic Farm OPEN DAY, Art and Earth Emergency or Emergent Event.