Visual Arts in Rural Communities

VARC (Visual Art In Rural Communities) is a yearly residency programme that was established by Leo Amery in 1999. Artists spend the year at Highgreen developing their own work and leading local community arts projects with groups that include local schoolchildren, adult community groups, and first year art students from Newcastle University.

VARC also sponsors other arts events that take place alongside the residency. In 'Gathering' photographer Kate Bellis and sculptor Sally Matthews documented the lives of local farmers over an 18 month period. In 'Spirit of Tarset’ artist Gavin Thorogood collaborated with composers Luke Daniels and James Wyness and local musicians resulting in a work that expressed their experience of the people, traditions and spectacular landscape of Tarset.

www.varc.org.uk