Talking ArtZ 15 | The Professor talks with Manu from Farm It Forward and Sharon from Gang Gang GalleryI

Talking ArtZ

Talking ArtZ 15 | The Professor talks with Blue Mountains artist & socially conscious entrepreneur, Manu from Farm it forward, a Blue Mountain not-for-profit urban farming social ART enterprise.

Brad talked on the RBM’s Talking ArtZ program to Emmanuela Prigioni from social enterprise, Farm it Forward, which has become one of our strategic partners in our growing greating ecology. We met Manu at GBMCAN's strategic planning day, when she came along as a guest of our Treasurer and keen permaculture trainer, Melissa Chambers. Manu has a masters degree in visual art and she is strongly committed to socially engaged art.
The Professor: So what is Farm It Forward Manu?
Manu: Farm It Forward is a not-for-profit social enterprise that tackles issues of social isolation and food security in the Greater Glue Mountains. We grow food in market gardens that are on people's donated unused private land, to help residents of the Blue Mountains who are at risk of social isolation and food insecurity.
There are four young people who are employed to look after these plots, of which we have 8 in total. We're based mostly around the Mid Mountains, Hazelbrook and Lawson, but we also have 2 plots in Katoomba. The Blue Mountains Food Co-op is sponsoring us to grow food for them, another is right in the middle of Katoomba between the Cultural Centre and the Carrington Hotel.
On the Farm It Forward website their mission is described as
“We grow nutrient dense regenerative food for our local community whilst raising awareness on growing practises and the mental health benefits of growing a food garden. Social outreach is a big part of what we do. We empower people to create local food systems creating resilience and nurturing our physical and mental health into the future.”
The Professor: Now are you linking culture and art based activities with all the aspects of the positive things that we can do to improve things like mental health and social isolation?
Manu: This year we're working on a project that will also include an art exhibition of materials and what we've made throughout our different projects. Something quite unique about our social Enterprise is that we managed to survive through the drought, the bushfires, the floods and the pandemic. That's largely due to the fact that we've reached so many people and they're the ones that I've been able to carry is through with this program.
The Professor: How does your work fit in with GBMCAN’s regenesis project?
Manu: I regularly do some visual artwork. I am a printmaker and I like to use my own pigments that I extract from my garden wood. I really enjoy doing a lot of printmaking using woodblock, linocuts and other illustration work. It's never in isolation. it's always to help with the work that we do and see in our food security work. So it's something that I've started teaching. I like not so much teaching, but sharing my skills with our volunteers and our team. The kind of artwork that I do never fits into the usual art gallery. I like to democratise art. I'm Italian and I come from a place where there is a very strong culture of appreciating art in the everyday, not in some specialise art gallery. I feel that's really important, and it fits in with the way Aboriginal people here have treated art making in their own culture.
To hear the full podcast click play.