The Clean Blue of Linen: A story from We Feed The UK

This summer find out more about flax farming with this touring exhibition from The Gaia Foundation, hosted in the Roots building on Union Farm. The exhibition complements our community-led venture 'The Flax and Fleece Project', part of the Living Heritage Inventories and the Flax and Linen Community Europe. Please find more information below. 

"The most profound lesson I have learned at Mallon Farm is the transformative power of personal passion in creating change" - Yvette Monahan.

Photographer Yvette Monahan and poet Abby Oliveira spent a season documenting the revival of flax farming in Northern Ireland for We Feed The UK: a storytelling project created by The Gaia Foundation. On Mallon Farm in County Tyrone, Helen Keys and Charlie Mallon are once again growing the "wee blue blossom" as part of a patchwork of potatoes, grass and oats; sown with a fiddle, grown chemical-free, harvested by hand, retted in rainwater, scutched on a restored turbine, and threaded through local makers' fingers. 

Flax was cultivated for linen for two thousand years, or so the peat bogs tell us. Helen and Charlie's efforts are rejuvenating soil, waterways and wildlife. They are also regenerating a heritage that promises future resilience. In fact, farming to meet a diversity of needs - from food to fibre - once protected flax growers from the devastation of the potato famine. 

After years of payment reductions from the government for so-called 'unproductive' areas, Helen and Charlie embraced nature-friendly farming and re-introduced flax as a rotational crop. The bees followed, then the flocks of linnet, and finally a community of humans who lend many hands to the hard work. 

Grown by charity The Gaia Foundation, We Feed The UK pairs photographers and poets with custodians of soil and sea. Their humble but revolutionary stories gift us grassroots solutions to climate change, nature recovery and social justice. Photography by Yvette Monahan was commissioned in collaboration with Belfast Exposed and poetry by Abby Oliveira in partnership with Hot Poets. Explore all the stories at wefeedtheuk.org 

Find this exhibition in the Roots Building on Union Farm. Click here to find out about community-led flax production at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse. The volunteers involved can be found on site throughout the year 

Both flax and Norfolk Horn fleece have played an important role in Norfolk's textile past. Come and explore what these sustainable fibres mean to us in the present! 
 
See demonstrations of the heritage skills involved in linen and wool production, and chat with volunteers about practical activities they are showcasing - from planting and processing to scutching and spinning! 

• 5 August (Barnyard Bash event) 
• 16 August 
• 13 September (Heritage Open Day) 
• 4 October (Apple Day event) 
• 25 October (please note: 10am-3pm) 

Book for The Flax and Fleece Project

Image credits: Yvette Monahan