Rural and regional Australia is on the frontline of change. By digging into the nuanced and complex issues impacting our collective future, gently reconsidering the way we think, feel and act within the world we inhabit, we can establish better connections within our communities, between consumers and farmers, and the natural world to create the type of place where we all thrive.
Kim V. Goldsmith
Related pages
SOIL+ SAMPLES · soundscapes, imagery and sensory writings
SOIL+ EVENTS · events from, about and informing the project
SPACE WALK · stories of place, community & environment walk
SOIL+ IDEAS · conversations with different knowledge holders
SOIL+ MEDIA · interviews and editorials about the project
SUMBIOS BLOG POSTS · thoughts and residency documentation
The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.
James Baldwin
What is SOIL+AiR creative future landscapes?
SOIL+AiR (AiR = Artist in Residence) brings together creatives, farmers, land stewards, other knowledge holders, and community changemakers to gently reconsider the way we think, feel and act within the world we inhabit through connection, enquiry, sharing, kindness, storytelling, and creativity-led action. It’s more about finding the right questions to ask about the future than any one answer. It’s about collaboration and collective action, within and beyond our home territory. Collaborators include host farmer/agro-ecologist, Bruce Maynard, and members of the Trangie community through the Local Aborigional Land Council.
Background (click to go to this section)
STAGE 1: On-farm creative residency (click to go to this section)
STAGE 2: Connected and engaged art making (click to go this section)
STAGE 3: Presentation and publication (to come)
Stage 1: On-farm creative residency
(July 2024 – December 2025)
Stage 1 has been self-funded with the assistance of a small crowdfunding campaign.
Between July 2024 and December 2025, artist Kim V. Goldsmith and agro-ecologist/ farmer, Bruce Maynard, ‘Willydah’, Narromine NSW, are working through what it means to co-lead a creative exploration of a regenerative farming system and the landscape it exists within. All knowledge holders involved in this stage of the project have the opportunity to shape the outcomes. These outcomes have not been predetermined. This project isn’t just about the use of the farm as an environment in which to be creative, but to allow the creative minds of the artist and farmer to explore, challenge, and reimagine healthy, thriving future landscapes and communities.
Space has been held for others to be part of the conversation—other knowledge holders, other land stewards, Traditional Owners, community changemakers, creatives, and the next generation. It is not about telling farmers how to farm, but sharing, learning and connecting through the farm, and better managing our precious natural and human resources wherever we are. SEE SPACE WALK
By late-2025, a number of activities will have taken place:
- Active and reciprocal listening and sonic and visual observations will have been recorded across the landscape in which the Maynard family farm sits. SEE SOIL+SAMPLES
- We’ll have made connections and shared experiences with each other, shared and documented our stories, creatively cross-fertilising ideas. I’ll have learned more about the systems at play in the region, other ways of acting, and asking ‘What if…’. SEE SOIL+IDEAS
- We’ll have walked the landscape with different knowledge holders from the region and beyond. We’ll be starting to see and understand the landscape and our communities from new perspectives through creative and more-than-human lenses. Conversations will have been provoked, considering the issues, desires and needs of the region.
- Ideas will be documented regularly through the Sumbios blog, some directly related to what’s happening on farm, some indirectly. Sample work will have been generated in preparation for a more comprehensive body of work and further community engagement.
- Funding will have been secured to develop Stage 2 of the project.
Stage 2: Connected and engaged art making
(April 2025 – June 2026)
Stage 2 has been supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW
Under the working title of Entwined, the next stage of SOIL+AiR is to create a body of digital media works for an exhibition at the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo at the end of 2026. Alongside the solo exhibition will be an installation at the Wungunja Cultural Centre in Trangie.
Stage 2 also includes community engagement activities during the development of the work, directed and led by the Aboriginal community of Trangie through the Trangie LALC and Wungunja Cultural Centre, supported by Aboriginal Elder, Aunty Ruth Carney, and others in the community.
An online international event, bringing together project partners and knowledge specialists from SOIL+AiR creative future landscapes and The Landing Project (UK) also forms part of Stage 2.
Documenting the entire two year project in readiness for the late 2026 exhibition will be a project publication. This will include essays, photos, soundscape samples, community stories, and other information.
Summary of Entwined (State 2)
- Development of a body of digital media works for exhibition in late 2026
- Community engagement activities in Trangie, led by the community in 2025/26, starting with a special NAIDOC Week event in August.
- Event connecting SOIL+AiR with The Landing Project
- Publishing of a project book, 2026
There is hardly anything more effective than the arts — be they the visual arts or music and the other performing arts – for developing and refining…natural ability to recognise and express patterns.
Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, 2014
SOIL+ Events
2025
27 May 2025: Listening lab with international rangelands delegates, Willydah Narromine NSW (images in carousel below)
Sharing the sound of soils at Willydah with delegates travelling from Sydney to Adelaide for the International Rangeland Congress.
18 July 2025: World Listening Day SOIL+Sample, online
On 18 July, immerse yourself in a sample soundscape from the farm, Willydah. Details of the World Listening Day theme to be announced.
25 – 29 August 2025: NAIDOC Week event, Trangie NSW
A special project is in planning that will bring together cultural activities in the Wongaibon community of Trangie in Central West NSW with the voice and song of the surrounding landscape. More to come.
2024
18 July 2024: World Listening Day SOIL+ Sample, online
On 18 July, immerse yourself in the soundscape sample, Willydah, Winter 2024. Registered as an event with the World Listening Project, this soundscape is the first of many to come over the next year. MORE INFO
16 August: National Science Week panel event, online
STEAMy Stories: intersecting creativity will see a panel of regionally-based scientists and creatives come together to discuss where the arts and science intersect in the quest to question, learn, reveal, and communicate new stories about the human and more-than-human experience. This facilitated, one-hour event is free and online.
Panellists: Kim V. Goldsmith (multi-disciplinary artist/creative producer, Dubbo), Scott Baker (electronic and digital media artist, Bermagui), Rebecca Campbell (former scientist/ author, Armidale), Daryl Albertson (ecologist/ artist, Armidale). Facilitator: Jessica Moore (Cultural Coordinator, Dubbo Regional Council). READ BIOS
WATCH OR LISTEN (recorded on Zoom)
This event is supported by Orana Arts, Dubbo Regional Council and ecoPULSE.art.
21 September: Stories of Place, Community and Environment (SPACE) Walk, Narromine NSW
MORE ABOUT THE SPACE WALK (Watch the video)
The Stories of Place, Community and Environment (SPACE) Walk on ‘Willydah’ Narromine is a SOIL+AiR creative future landscapes event.
The half-day, on-farm community walk and share lunch invites different knowledge holders and community members to walk with multi-generational farmer, land carer and agroecologist, Bruce Maynard, and ecological artist and creative producer, Kim V. Goldsmith, on Bruce’s farm between Narromine and Trangie. Changemakers in the community are invited to join us on a short walk around the farm followed by a share-plate lunch over a conversation that reimagines our collective future in the region. Let’s rewrite the script for our future where we all get a say in the ending!
Along with documenting the event (a photographer will be at the event), a collection of audio stories will be gathered over several weeks following the walk, building on the 18 already in the Regional Futures Vaticinor collection (2022/23). These stories will focus on different ways of thinking about the challenges ahead of us and the actions each one of us is taking to address them.
This is an invitation-only event for the Narromine and Trangie communities, however, if you would like to talk to us about the SPACE Walk and the possibility of having one in your region, please contact Kim.
This event has been supported by the Trangie Local Aboriginal Land Council, and Landcare. It has been awarded Country Arts Support Program (CASP) funding with thanks to the NSW Government through Create NSW and Orana Arts.
26 Oct – 23 Nov: Regional Futures: An Entangled Existence exhibition, Basil Sellers Exhibition Centre, Moruya NSW
Regional Futures: An Entangled Existence explores the future of Regional Australia through an intersectional feminist lens that draws inspiration from the landscapes and the socio-ecological fabric of our regions. This exhibition came about because of the Statewide Regional Futures project and exhibitions in 2022/23—a Regional Arts Network initiative funded by Create NSW. SOIL+AiR builds on the issues and processes explored during the Regional Futures project.
The works in this exhibition have been created by female artists of different experiences and backgrounds, from across Regional NSW, each creatively investigating the complex issues impacting our collective future from the perspective of those playing a critical role in shaping environmental, cultural, social and economic health. Intersectional feminism recognises how different aspects of our social and political identity often influence the way we think about and experience the world.
The artists are Kim V. Goldsmith (Dubbo), Anna Glynn (Jaspers Brush), Laura Baker (Blayney), Tracy Luff (Goulburn), Jane Richens (Dungog), Joanne Stead (Tamworth), and Tania Hartigan (Wallabadah).
🗣️ Opening and Panel Discussion at The Bas, from 10.30am, Saturday 26 October LISTEN TO THE PANEL DISCUSSION
🚶🏼➡️ Cultural Walk with Yuin Elder, Patricia Ellis, 2-4pm, Saturday 26 October
💻 Online Panel Discussion on Zoom, 12-1pm, Wednesday 13 November
REGISTER TO GET ZOOM LINK
Other self-funded, non-affiliated events forming part of the SOIL+AiR explorations include Landcare Understanding Soils & Biodiversity Paddock Walk at Molong (1 August); Australian Rural Leadership Foundation Changemaker Workshop at Nyngan (5 & 6 September), and various online webinars and local events on topics such as biodiversity conversation, threatened species and vegetation types in Central West NSW.
Art is a safe place to have dangerous conversations…not to turn our back on things, but to lean in.
Rose Marin, Regional Futures Symposium, 2023
Background to SOIL+AiR
On the back of some of the issues that arose from the Regional Futures creative development and research project (2022/23), Vaticinor, a Country Arts Support Program (CASP) grant was sought in 2023 for a scoping study. The grant provided a modest artist fee to look at the merit, impact and viability of the SOIL+AiR project, initially, for an on-farm residency in Central West NSW. The scoping study went on to explore the relationship between creative and farmer, working through issues, needs/ wants, challenges/ opportunities, potential outcomes and partnerships. It included a week of meeting with artists and regenerative farmers in Shropshire UK, looking at creative exchange models in the UK and how an international exchange might work.
It was clear any program established would need to be based on mutual respect, co-led creative approaches, and shared benefits and outcomes centred on adaptive cultural change in the regions and their communities. Along the way, ideas and information should be shared within the region and beyond, including internationally, gaining new perspectives on critical issues from a diverse range of voices.
Outcome: A scoping study report was submitted in October 2023 and the outline of a plan for further development was developed, identifying potential partnerships, activities, and funding options for a residency program. At this stage, the project required funding to continue its development.
STAGE 1: On-farm creative residency (click to go to this section)
STAGE 2: Connected and engaged art making (click to go this section)
Healthy people, landscapes and communities are achieved at ground level.
Bruce Maynard
LEAD ARTIST/ CREATIVE PRODUCER (Australia)
Kim V. Goldsmith
Regionally-based artist (Wiradjuri Country), Kim V. Goldsmith has more than three decades of experience working in agriculture, natural resource management (NRM) and the arts. She is approaching this project from the perspective of someone raised on a large working farm in North Western NSW, who studied Systems Agriculture (Applied Science), and reported on rural industries as a specialist radio (ABC Radio) and freelance print journalist (1992-2015); she ran a mixed farm in Central West NSW with her family for 10 years – 7 of them during the Millennium Drought; consulted on the marketing communications of food and fibre production groups, NRM projects and regenerative farming initiatives for 25 years. Her interdisciplinary arts practice of 20+ years explores the layers of nuance and complexity within rural and regional territories. Kim’s multi-media, site-specific works include complex soundscape compositions, art video, writing, audio storytelling, installation and public programming including guided soundwalks. She’s an experienced public speaker, facilitator, educator, and arts administrator. Kim is the founder of ecoPULSE.art.
AGRO-ECOLOGIST/ FARMER (Australia)
Bruce Maynard
Bruce Maynard, Narromine NSW, has developed one of the most inspirational regenerative farms in Australia. A fourth generation farmer on his property, over the past three and a half decades, he has converted it from conventional practices to a functionally diversified landscape that is showing how adaptation to new farming systems can be practically implemented.
His family’s 1400ha property, “Willydah”, has re-established complex grasslands, planted over 300,000 shrubs and 200,000 trees. Today, Bruce also travels around Australia assisting others, extending sustainable and regenerative farming practices. Bruce is also well-known for the invention and development of a number of innovations in agriculture including: No Kill Cropping, Stress Free Stockmanship and Self Herding(with Dr Dean Revell). Bruce won the National Landcare Award in 2022. MORE ABOUT BRUCE
If you’re interested in a conversation about the project or in potentially partnering with us, email Kim to organise a conversation.
SOIL+AiR fundraising campaign
In June/July 2024, $1550 was raised over 6 weeks with an EOFY fundraiser through the Australian Cultural Fund. Twenty-six supporters from across the eastern states of Australia and overseas put their money into getting SOIL+AiR off the ground. Thank you to all who donated, shared or simply cheered on from the sidelines.
– Kim V. Goldsmith
