ABSTRACT
In this chapter, artist Rajni Shah writes through the lens of a project she co-directed in 2014, in which 30 people met three times over seven months to explore the concept and value of ‘lying fallow’ within a wider society that is frequently driven by productivity and outcome. The three questions that framed the invitation for the project were: How might alert quietude, not knowing, and listening be seen as spaces of change, rigour, and possibility? Where and how might the idea of ‘lying fallow’ be actualised and given value within contemporary society? What becomes possible in those times when it may seem to the outside world as if we are doing or producing nothing?
