Application summary

When we think of shepherding, most of us picture a bearded man with a crook—yet reality is far more complex. Women work alongside livestock worldwide, holding specialized knowledge that often male farmers, researchers and engineers lack. Women's specialized knowledge in agriculture still often remains invisible: helping with animal birth and healing, using medicinal plants, caring for family and herd likewise... MotherLand will be a video installation, combined with installation elements made from locally sourced wool, and showing shepherd women from different backgrounds from around Europe (Hungary, Czech, Finland…) as we rarely see them. These women drive tractors, assist births, herd, heal animals and have smart phones. Among those I work with, some come from artist backgrounds, others from IT, some work in communal groups, others continue the tradition of family farming. My practice combines documentary filmmaking, installation and craft. In 2026 I started filming with Hungarian and Czech shepherd women (for 1,5 month in February and March). I also met wool artisans, who told me about the complex problemtics around - and lost in legislation - wool processing in Europe. The Finnish context would open up a new landscape. Mynämäki—where sheep graze meadows and wooded pastures (metsälaitumet)—embodies the same ecological stewardship my ongoing work explores. These practices maintain not only biodiversity but also traditional landscapes and the culture that always sustained them. The May-October grazing season allows for documenting pastoral life, filming women's work on pastures, and understanding how Finnish shepherding focuses both on ecological management and local traditions, that might offer a valuable insight for our disappearing grazing culture in Hungary. But most of all: showing a diversity of possible pathways within agriculture, that is also a possibility for women coming from all different paths of life.