2024 - The Incredible Beauty of Organic Farming Single screen / video installation, 28’.32’’ Photography, editing, music: Jaap de Ruig Meditative film in which the beauty of organic agriculture and livestock farming is sung wordlessly. An idyllic nineteenth-century painting with cows in a meadow landscape, purchased on an online sales platform, gives the artist a feeling of happiness every time he looks at it. In The Incredible Beauty of Organic Farming , Jaap de Ruig investigates whether such a form of livestock farming and agriculture is also possible in the twenty-first century. The organic farmers he visited showed him that they are not pursuing a romanticized utopia. The poetic images, almost subversive in their simplicity, prove that there is a reality that can offer a view of a livable future. The question and at the same time the starting point of The Incredible Beauty of Organic farming was for the artist: why does the old painting evoke a feeling of happiness in me? And is it in the twenty-first century still possible to experience that same feeling? He visited and revisited a number of successful farms that work with respect for the earth and livestock, including a 270 hectare arable farm and a mixed farm that grows vegetables and ornamental flowers and raises dairy cattle. On these farms he experienced the same thing as when looking at the painting, once he was even moved to tears when he saw a field with endless rows of ecological carrots. It made him aware of the purity of both the crop and the soil in which it grew. The character of the film The Incredible Beauty of Organic Farming is a film with only 51 shots in nearly 30 minutes and an opening shot of three and a half minutes. The musical score, composed by the artist, has a minimalist and serene character. The film can be viewed as a video installation – falling into the middle of it is no problem – but it can also be shown as a film with a beginning and an end. This film fits within Jaap de Ruig's oeuvre, in which one of the recurring themes is the relationship between man and the animals man exploits. This also extends to plants and the earth in general. The static camera work is also characteristic of his work, comparable to the experimental documentary The Source - One Day in a Roma Settlement in Romania (2009), which was shown at eleven film festivals including the IFFR (Rotterdam) and the NFF (Utrecht), and the more recent film NO PANIC! - One Year in Lockdown on 150m² of Polder Land (2021), which was on display as an installation in Museum Belvédère in Heerenveen and in CRUCE - arte y pensamiento contemporáneo in Madrid. Statement It is bittersweet to realize that agriculture and livestock farming that are safe and friendly to people, animals and the earth, have existed for a long time and are also economically profitable, but that in a developed country like the Netherlands only four percent of the agricultural area is used in an organically responsible manner. The established farmers and the agro-industry are digging in their heels and obstruct the necessary transition, undermining our common future. The result can be that one factor after another in the chain will become unbalanced and, like a falling domino, will throw the rest out of balance. Showing wordless how it can be done, as in this film, almost takes on something subversive because of its simplicity and innocence. Information sheet in pdf: The Incredible Beauty of Organic Farming