Who are we?

Under director Adam Sutherland, Grizedale Arts brings to The Farmer’s Arms over twenty years of experience the hands-on re-development of the historic Coniston Institute and of their rural headquarters, Lawson Park. 

Grizedale Arts also have a stellar track record of delivering acclaimed arts and educational projects locally, nationally and internationally.

By working with their volunteers and the local community, the Coniston Institute is once again a lively community-run hub. The transformation of Lawson Park, recognised with an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects, has brought a derelict hill farm back to productive use, offering staff, visitors and guests a dynamic and welcoming space that puts education, craft skills, collaboration and the expertise of non-artists at centre stage.

Alongside self-built workshops and artist-designed structures, two acres of Lawson Park’s uncultivated fellside have been transformed into productive fruit and vegetable plots, with the growing and eating of local, sustainable food integral to the organisation’s daily life.

Through grassroots work undertaken by a worldwide network of associate artists, Grizedale Arts has sought out places where people share their drive to find new and often innovative ways to live in predominantly rural places. Initiating collaborative learning exchange projects with communities in Japan, Korea, the USA, Norway, Spain, Italy and more, they have developed a series of unified international projects with innovative arts, economic, health and wellbeing outputs that retain the value of disappearing ways of life.

︎ Explore more of Grizedale Art’s work here.