Charlottetown exhibit explores shifting rural landscapes

The country’s rural landscapes are changing, and a new exhibit at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown seeks to explore that shift.

Many people have never seen a grain bin up close, but they were a staple of the small-scale farming that dominated Canada’s rural communities for decades.

However, that's changing and now even a 30-year-old, 40-tonne bin seems too small for the needs of a modern industrial farm.

“Individual people can’t afford them anymore. Like there’s no way you’d ever start one,” said Doug Rochelle, a farmer from Atwood, Ontario, who donated the bin. “I see that, once these guys that have them now come to the end of their term that, I can see offshore investment companies taking over our farms and it’ll just be like big companies that run things.”

The artists behind the installation, calling themselves a Common Collective, took the aging grain bin and transformed it into a display the public can touch.

“It’s too small for today’s farming,” said Rochelle. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, probably would have just ended up in scrap.”

The display gives visitors a chance to immerse themselves in the piece of agricultural infrastructure.

“This piece is more about, sort of, the changing nature of our relationship to the land,” said Pan Wendt, curator of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery. “How we work it, and how we live on it, and, you know, ultimately large economic forces move us around and transform things.”

This is the first time the bin has been on display as it was rebuilt at the centre in October. Prince Edward Island’s poet laureate has become enamoured with the piece and is presenting her response to it next week.

The silo will be on display at the centre until the end of February.

For more Prince Edward Island news visit our dedicated provincial page.