Ruskin To-Day is an informal organisation that exists to celebrate the life and ideas of the artist, critic and social reformer John Ruskin (1819-1900). It brings together the activities of the many different societies, academic institutions and individuals who share an interest in Ruskin and in the many different aspects of his work. This website serves as a noticeboard to draw attention to the many Ruskinian events that take place across the world.

LAWSON PARK’S ADAM SUTHERLAND WINS THE AMPERSAND FOUNDATION 2025 AWARD

The Director of Grizedale Arts, Adam Sutherland, based at Lawson Park Farm, which neighbours Ruskin’s house at Coniston, has been awarded £150,000 by the Ampersand Foundation. Sutherland describes his project REFORM LIFE as the culmination of his whole career at Grizedale Arts and a celebration of the interdisciplinary artists who have worked with him over the last twenty-five years.

Sutherland now has three years in which to complete seven new commissions across the Coniston valley. They include a symposium, exhibition, public art projects and a book, all celebrating what he sees as an alternative rural tradition of environmentalism and arts projects, from Ruskin’s Lecture “The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century” (1884) to the crises of today. Ruskin’s ideas, which have long influenced Sutherland, will feature strongly.

The exhibition will mark new links between historical and contemporary art and social and political history. It will be produced in partnership with European institutions Factum Arte,  ZKM, and Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. There will also be a comprehensive publication that makes the case for rural cultures to be understood as an alternative strand of cultural history and demonstrates their profound influence on global politics and culture.

The Ampersand Foundation Award is open to all 46 UK art organizations that are currently members of Tate’s Plus Tate network. It aims to give curators and directors the chance to produce their dream exhibition or visual arts project, something that they have been unable to do due to funding pressures and constraints – a project that would have been impossible to realize without the award. The Foundation recognizes the considerable difficulties that UK art organizations are currently experiencing, particularly when it comes to securing funding for projects that might carry higher risks. They welcome innovative ideas, especially bold and unconventional ones for all types of visual art projects across any period, not just contemporary.

Grizedale Arts

Grizedale Arts is based at the historic site of Lawson Park, a farm high above the Coniston valley in the English Lake District next to Ruskin’s Brantwood estate. The organization grew from The Grizedale Society’s 1969 – 1999 programme of site-specific forest sculpture and land art activity in the Grizedale Forest, notable for its commissioning of sculptors such as Andy Goldsworthy and David Nash. With the appointment of Adam Sutherland in 1999, Grizedale Arts became a more experimental organization, generating cultural activity of all kinds at a local, national and international level. It has been active in Coniston village, and runs a pub, The Farmers Arms.

Underpinning the programme is a philosophy that art and artists can affect change and benefit wider culture and society. Over the last two decades Grizedale Arts has become an acclaimed and influential model for a new kind of art institution, one that works beyond the established structures of the contemporary art world. Participating in farming, gardening, and growing a wide range of food is central to the ethos of the programme. A communal meal is often drawn from food growing at Lawson Park, cooked by whoever volunteers to do so, and served each day at 1pm. Horticulture, hospitality and food production provide a useful model for working collaboratively both on site and elsewhere.

Adam Sutherland

Adam Sutherland MBE was appointed Director of Grizedale Arts in 1999. Prior to that he worked in London as a freelance artist, curator and producer and in the Scottish Highlands redeveloping art.tm. He has led the development of Grizedale Arts (formerly the Grizedale Society) from regional forest sculpture trail to an internationally significant arts organisation. He has re-positioned Grizedale as an experimental and developmental curatorial project that operates as a working farmhouse and events centre offering residencies, projects, events and community activity as he has a lifelong commitment to helping art and artists become a part of everyday life.