Summary

Image taken at the 2003 Yarram Women on Farms Gathering during a singing workshop. Participants of this workshop learnt a selection of songs that were later performed on stage during the Saturday night dinner.
Part of Museums Victoria's Invisible Farmer Project Collection. The Invisible Farmer Project was the largest ever study of Australian women on the land, uncovering the histories and stories of Australian women in agriculture. It began as a pilot project (2015-2016) and evolved into a three year (2017-2020) nation-wide partnership between rural communities, academic, government and cultural organisations, funded by the Australian Research Council.

Description of Content

Participants socialise and relax at the 2003 Yarram Women on Farms Gathering.

Physical Description

Colour Digital Photograph

Significance

Workshops have been a regular feature of all Victorian Women on Farms Gatherings ever since the first Gathering in Warragul in 1990. At the inaugural 1990 Gathering, workshops were inspired by the farm skills courses that had been running around Victoria during the late 1980s and that had been the forerunner to the first Gathering. These workshops were very hands-on and focused predominately on enhancing the practical farm skills of the women that participated. However, as the Gatherings themselves evolved to include a range of broader rurally based activities and issues, workshops too became more diverse and began to include a range of non-farming educational opportunities. Whatever their focus, all workshops have aimed to educate, inspire, up skill and rejuvenate the women that partake. Situated in the wider context of the rural women's movement in Australia, these workshops represent a collective move by rural women to educate themselves about farming and other enterprises, raise their public profile and in doing so, to challenge the dominant representation of rural Australia as a male domain.

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