Fred Branson: I am interested – following Silvia Federici – in how community growing spaces and small-scale farms can be more than simply sites of food production, but also centres for conviviality, creativity, resistance, and re-enchantment.
Fred Branson I held the workshop in early autumn 2024, on the back of a five-day residency at Braziers earlier in the year. Organised around the idea and practice of gleaning (gathering crop residues after the harvest) the workshop explored working with different plant fibres to create small coiled vessels. We played with various plants, investigating their sculptural and textile affordances, including carrot, rhubarb, garlic, leek, bean, gherkin, cucumber, pea, rye grass, sweetcorn, lime, willow, bramble, nettle, and daffodil.
BP Tell us a bit about yourself and your practice more generally.
FB My background is in community arts, visual anthropology, and agroecology. At the moment, I divide my time between being a parent, visual artist, and landworker. As a grower on a small-scale vegetable farm in North Oxfordshire, I am interested – following Silvia Federici – in how community growing spaces and small-scale farms can be more than simply sites of food production, but also centres for conviviality, creativity, resistance, and re-enchantment. Much of my practice begins in response to plant and animal materials that I encounter as part of my work on farms. Once the commercial harvests have finished, I return to the fields to go gleaning, both as a source of materials and an inquiry into that which exceeds the standards and logic of the market. I am interested in how an orientation towards these materials might enable me and others to develop alternative sensibilities, perspectives, and practices of attention. Over the past year, I have been developing Terra Obscura, a creative research project that explores stories of landwork amongst small-scale, first-generation and community farmers in the UK. The photographic project unfolds through experimental visual methods that materially involve landscapes as active partners in collaborative processes of image making, storytelling, and knowledge production.
BP How did you experience Braziers as a site to run your workshop? What was it that attracted you to the site and how did your workshop blend into the ethos of our community?
FB Braziers was the perfect setting for the workshop on gleaning. We spent most of the day in the Cowshed, a former dairy stable tucked away in a beautiful little corner of the estate. When the sun came out, we seized our chance to venture into the nearby orchard, walled garden, and glasshouse, to explore what materials might be gleaned for our baskets. Prior to the day of the workshop, I had already spent a week at Braziers, along with my partner and our then 6-month-old daughter. We loved being a part of the community for a short time, catching a glimpse of the ethos that underpins what goes on at Braziers. I like to think the workshop shared in that ethos through its spirit of experimentation towards alternative ways of being in relationship with land.
BP Any reading (books, articles, etc.) or films you would like to share with us? Anything that reflects your current mindset/values/creative practice?
FB I mentioned Silvia Federici above so should probably include the book of hers that has most marked me: Caliban and the Witch. Chris Smaje’s A Small Farm Future is a big reason why I decided to work on a market garden. Camera Geologica is a fascinating history of photography, through the minerals on which the medium depends.
BP Three words to describe Braziers Park?
FB Inventive - spirited - encouraging
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Fred Brenson’s (he/him) work combines experience in community arts, visual anthropology & agroecology. He is particularly interested in producing work that engages with both the materials and politics of different landscapes. His most recent work responds to the plants he encounters as part of his work on a small-scale vegetable farm in North Oxfordshire. This has led to experiments with cordage, coiled basketry, and most recently – thanks to funding from Arts Council England – the construction of camera obscurae.
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Fred is returning to Braziers Park this year and will be running two workshops: