Make cheese, milk goats and ponder on Beatrix Potter in "land" art survey

Hauser & Wirth have certainly embraced country living. The London- and Zurich-based mega-gallery opened a branch in leafy Somerset in the west of England in 2014, and will focus on all things rural in a vast new survey opening at the Bruton base next month. The Land We Live In-The Land We Left Behind (20 January-7 May) includes works by more than 50 artists dating from the 1500s to today such as Mark Dion, Roni Horn, Laure Prouvost, Marcus Coates (and Beatrix Potter, which is both traditional and radical at the same time). Viewers will apparently “have the opportunity to engage with the themes of the exhibition through a series of participatory artists' projects and practical presentations, such as aquaponics, fermentation, goat milking and cheese making”, a press statement says. There is a serious point though; the organisers say that the sprawling survey will explore the contradictory nature of society's relationship to life in the country.