Traditional rural ways of life that have shaped Alberta are being lost to urban sprawl and the mindset of suburban one-upmanship. In response to this, the freethinking, unconventional and often controversial Calgary art collective, The Arbour Lake Sghool — and that ‘g’ is not a typo — have teamed up with the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery for The Farm Show: Growing.

The collective is back in action for the first time since October 2009. In the past, the group focused on shaking up suburban uniformity with entertaining, albeit sometimes controversial projects, including backyard volcanoes and public robot fights.

This time, they’re turning the spotlight on forces eroding and reshaping the quintessential rural landscape of the Prairies. John and Andrew Frosst, Wayne Garrett, Justin Patterson, Scott Rogers and Caitlind Brown have taken a century-old farmhouse and reconstructed it to appear as though it’s blowing away in the wind.

John Frosst, one of the original members of Arbour Lake, says the group wanted to discuss how the province is losing a lot of its rural landscape to larger companies.

“The way of life is being lost as well,” adds Andrew, who has been with the collective since its inception in 2003. “People are moving to the urban centres and the original ways of farming are being forgotten.”

Further inspiration came from within the group. Patterson grew up on a farm, which has since been sold, and his family members have scattered in various directions.

“I was thinking about how when that happens it’s really like something going to seed and blowing away in the wind like it would on a farm,” John says. “So we wanted to make that statement with a building.”

The group originally lived and made art together in one house, but has scattered over the years, much like the rural families, and it has allowed them to expand into a diverse range of inspirations.

“It’s a little more mature and it’s not just talking about the suburbs, but it’s talking about the human condition in general, especially as it relates to rural living and city living,” John says.

The Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery shares a plot of land with a seniors’ centre as well as a recreation centre. Despite some initial concerns about the type of reaction it would garner, the project has resonated with different generations. The building was originally a homestead, and people from the seniors’ centre have been sharing a variety of stories about their own experiences growing up in similar households.

“There’s old and young people milling about all the time, so there was some concern that the senior citizens might get their hackles raised, but they were really quite thrilled with it,” John says.

“While we were constructing it, we had tons of people just walking by and loving it, just really enjoying what we were doing,” Andrew adds. “All sorts of people coming by and enjoying it and asking lots of questions.”

Lorna Johnson, executive director of the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery, is extremely pleased with the response the project has received.

“People have been really intrigued by it and I’ve received a lot of favourable comments about it,” Johnson says. “The windswept house they’ve created is just so whimsical and it’s such an iconic image for farmland.”

Reimagining the house called for a great deal of experimentation, and while other elements were initially added, the Frosst’s say it just ended up taking away from the original idea.

“We felt the imagery from the shack was really strong and would make people think and feel the most, so we decided to leave it standing by itself,” Andrew says.

“It’s seen families grow up,” says John. “It’s been a shed, it’s been a grain barn, it’s seen a lot of action, so just the weathered nature of it and the patterns that surface spoke to its prominence and were really exciting to us.”

Johnson thinks the house is a fitting re-creation of what is happening in the agricultural community.

“It’s such a poignant comment on what’s happening in the agricultural community,” she says. “The house blowing away is like a metaphor for a way of life blowing away.”