Anna Poubová↓

About the work

We’ll Go on Holiday Only IF it rains

Anna Poubová’s graduation work We’ll Go on Holiday Only If It Rains reflects her return to life on the family farm where she grew up. After ten years living in various European cities, she revisits her childhood in the countryside. Living outdoors, watching the weather, and working irregular hours in the fields was her daily reality. At the same time, her childhood on an old farmstead was full of exploring different places, strange machines, and dusty hidden corners. In her return home, she explores the current reality of farming through conversations with her father.

Her project involved long-term research, looking for parallels between the fields of agriculture and art. It builds on her earlier installations relating to the landscape and machines. The subject of the landscape also brings to mind her previous photographic work exploring the impact of residential development. Collaborating with several farmers and with her own family, she has created an installation that acts as a bridge between two worlds.

During her research, Anna Poubová hit upon the issue of commodity exchanges, which also affect wheat prices and thus directly affect farmers’ earnings. In this way, local agricultural production encounters global price formation, with prices at any given moment being practically the same throughout the world while changing rapidly over time. Poubová sees this difficult-to-predict price development of a product whose production must be planned at least a year in advance as a kind of new weather that affects the lives of farmers and their families.