Location: Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes
In one photograph, the artist captures Roz looking towards Penhill and Wensleydale from the Shawl in Leyburn, weighing up whether she can live in the place where she grew up (see picture).
In another, a rabbit lies dead next to goal posts in Hawes, in an image which both rejects a romanticised view of country living and speaks of demographic change – a decreasing number of young people – in some National Park communities.
Joanne Coates, 35, is a visual artist and farm worker from Coverdale. The exhibition of her latest work, “Middle of Somewhere”, opened on Sunday and will run at the Dales Countryside Museum until 31 May. It features photography, sound, film and installation.
She said: “I was exploring rural housing and affordability, young women and their experiences of the countryside. It came from being someone who, growing up in rural North Yorkshire, felt like I had to leave. I left at 16 through feeling there was a lack of a future there for me. I didn’t know you could be an artist and stay in the countryside.
“[Middle of Somewhere] is about rural life: how is it changing, how is it staying the same? How do people get to stay in the communities they are from, or how do they get to come into the community? It’s a different version of the Dales that is not always photographed.
“There are four women involved. When I first met them we were sending each other voice notes and talking to each other a lot. I gave them microphones to record themselves – and that’s part of the film, which talks about their experiences, their worries and their dreams.”
Of the photograph of Roz, she said: “Roz as a student was thinking about her place in the National Park. This was when Roz knew she wasn’t going to come back home. This is the moment she was deciding that.
“She’d left to be a student, but she felt torn because this is where her family are and she also felt a deep connection to this place. You feel like you belong here, but you also feel that you can’t stay here.”
The particularity of Dales life – drawn from the artist’s observations of “hyper locality”, where people living in one part of the National Park are seen as “offcumdens” in another – is part of the exhibition. There is a photograph of the “Ta-ra” sign, on a stone shaped like a grave memorial, beside the road at Braidley in Coverdale. Another features a scarecrow and washing line.
Member Champion for Promoting Understanding at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Neil Heseltine, said: “The Dales Countryside Museum exists to share the stories of the people and places of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. ‘Middle of Somewhere’ by Joanne Coates does that in a probing and timely way, exploring rural community through the experiences and struggles of young women.”
He added: “I would highly recommend a visit to the museum, not just to see the new special exhibition, but to see new acquisitions that are being put on permanent display, of which we’ll be able to say more later this month.”
The Dales Countryside Museum is run by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority. It is open seven days a week. Admission is £5 for adults, or £10 for an annual pass.
