Farm/Art DTour

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Paul Gaudynski

"WEALTH" created by Vierbicher Associates & local farmers, an exhibit at a past Farm/Art DTour.

"WEALTH" created by Vierbicher Associates & local farmers, an exhibit at a past Farm/Art DTour.

This ephemeral combination of food and farming/harvest traditions with art — visual, performance, literary and more — only happens every couple years in rural Sauk County, and is always worth a slow drive along the 50-mile route. Eight artists or teams created new site-responsive artworks in farm fields along the route, which starts at County Highway PF just west of Prairie du Sac and winds through the hills south of Baraboo through Denzer, Leland, Witwen and Plain, where the scenery itself is enough to take your breath away. Performances and other events take place on the weekends. Maps can be picked up at the Sauk Prairie, Reedsburg and Baraboo Chamber of Commerce offices or Kraemer Library in Plain. Find a schedule of events at wormfarminstitute.org.

media release: The Farm/Art DTour is a self-guided, 50-mile drive through the beautiful working lands of Sauk County, Wisconsin, punctuated by ArtWorks (large-scale temporary art installations), Field Notes (interpretive signage), pasture performances, roadside poetry, local food and more. The DTour meanders through the working farmland and unique geology of the Driftless Region, and through the traditional homeland of the Ho-Chunk Nation and many other Indigenous peoples who continue to live here.

Artists are invited to propose original site-responsive works for public view October 5-14, 2024. A jury will select a diverse group of artists to respond to the land. We seek artists — individuals or teams, formally trained or self-taught, from all disciplines — who are interested in creating works that engage with the landscape, farmers, landowners, and surrounding rural communities. Successful past projects have ranged from sculptural objects, to interactive environments, to work activated by natural processes. Some have invited hands-on participation, utilized existing agricultural infrastructure, or were installed on buildings in the small towns along the route. Click here for images of past installations. "DTourists" are usually traveling by car and guided by a map, so successful proposals tend to be visually compelling and large-scale. Artists are responsible for both installation and de-installation and will have about two weeks to install and one week to de-install.

Eight artists and artist teams have been commissioned to create new artworks for the biennial Farm/Art DTour through rural Sauk County (October 5-14). We received 156 applications from 29 states and 15 countries—the largest and most diverse pool of candidates since the DTour began in 2011!

The artists—Brian Sobaski; Cathy McCauley, Shari Gullo and Pamela Self; Gabriela Jiménez Marván, Ryan Rotweiler and Leonardo Linares; Jongil Ma; Mars Patterson; Matthew Vivirito; Rachel Dohner and Olivia Comai; and Scottie McDaniel and Marshall Prado—received funding to create large-scale, site-responsive artworks that will be temporarily planted in working farm fields along the 50-mile DTour route. Click here to learn more and don't miss the DTour this fall!

Available now! Be sure to pick up your official paper DTour Map—with all the DTails about the 40+ Map Stops along this year’s route—at one of the two Trailheads:

Sauk Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce 109 Phillips Blvd. Sauk City, WI 53583, or

Kraemer Library & Community Center 910 Main St. Plain, WI 53577.

We have plenty of land & sky here in rural Wisconsin, but phone reception can be spotty. You’ll want the big paper map, trust us!

And for our Reedsburg friends, you can also pick up a Map at the Reedsburg Area Chamber of Commerce 240 Railroad St. Reedsburg, WI 53959.

The Trailheads are conveniently located less than an hour from Wisconsin city hubs including Madison, Baraboo, and Reedsburg, and three hours or less from Sheboygan, Milwaukee, LaCrosse, and Chicago, IL. Minneapolis, MN is about four hours away. Once in the area, there are a number of places to stay, eat & shop!

Note: Expect Highway 23 road construction around Plain and stay tuned here for updates on how to best access the DTour route if you're coming from the north or southwest.

About Wormfarm Institute

Wormfarm Institute is a nonprofit organization working to build a sustainable future for agriculture and the arts by fostering vital links between people and the land. An evolving laboratory of the arts and ecology and fertile ground for creative work, Wormfarm explores the links between rural and urban communities within and beyond the food chain, creating opportunities for cross-sector collaboration. For more information, visit wormfarminstitute.org