Grizedale Arts is an arts organisation based on the historic site of Lawson Park farm, above the Coniston valley in the Lake District.
The organisation is a curatorial project in a continuous state of development. Our current site, Lawson Park, is run as a productive small holding and working farm house, with a multifaceted programme of events, projects, residencies and community activity. Central to our ethos is the aim of implementing a more valuable function for art through a unique, cross-disciplinary education programme with a range of activities - all of which function to develop contemporary art in new directions; working beyond the Romantic and Individualist frameworks that have dominated thinking of the past 200 years of art history. Underpinning this programme therefore, is a philosophy that emphasises a use value for art; promoting the potential for art and artists to experiment and affect change in practical and effective roles, as a central tenet of wider culture and society.
The Grizedale Arts programme actively engages with the complexities of the rural environment. Rather than focusing on creating a finished art product we concentrate on the process, and the dissemination of ideas to a wider audience. In doing so, we typically work alongside the local community of a project to develop and realise work with artists - consequently the projects often challenge the artists as much as the local (participatory) audience. The activities are often fed into a major annual project or event that allows public access to the Grizedale’s process; as something that introduces artists’ thinking into everyday life, situating active contemporary arts alongside the culture of the rural environment.
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