(Does she?)
The WAAS were selected for the Walking the Land residency at the Gingerbread House, Oakbrook Farm, Stroud in November 2024.
We propose to spend the residency at The Gingerbread House and Museum in the Park exploring the notion of the “Farmer’s Wife”. We will attempt to embody this in a few days learning, so as to perform the “Farmer’s Wife”. Through this we raise questions about gendered farm work roles and how they are supported. We will create a performance where we enact the role for the SCA and Oakbrook Farm farmers and growers.
The public were invited to join us through the residency, to discuss women in farming, food production and provision.
We found in conversation with the Stroud Community Agriculture farmers, who work at the residency site, that in fact they were a team, and were all female and non-binary people, and the idea of gendered work was provoking and raised questions about care and sharing workloads. The farmers didn’t want a wife, although we all enjoyed and found it fun to “play” at being Wives.
We cooked on a tiny stove, and washed up, tried to be helpful.

We held a workshop for students in the Museum in the Park, examining the displays and captions regarding the roles of women in a farming family business.

We held a celebration event on Friday 29 November 12-2 to share our performances and practice, chat to visitors and discuss food, farming and the role of women in these endeavours.
There was a group show at the Museum in the Park showcasing all the residencies as part of the Growing Places/Gingerbread House Walking the Land project that took place over the course of several weeks.
We presented our work at a seminar day at the Museum on 2 February 2025.
Summary Report
You can read more about the performance – residency in our report.