Coates’ photography invites us to rethink the stereotypes surrounding farm life, where generational practices still favour sons for land inheritance, while women’s extensive contributions go unrecognised. Coates’ images reveal a truth: the future of farming depends on amplifying the voices and roles of women, making visible their critical place in the past, present, and future of agriculture. Ultimately it asks; ‘What does a farmer look like to you?’
Joanne Coates’ work has been widely recognized, featured in The Guardian, BBC, and the British Journal of Photography, and celebrated with awards including the Jerwood/Photoworks Prize, The Baltic Vasseur Award and the House of Commons Election Artist 2024.
Coates also works as a farm labourer, born in rural North Yorkshire and living on an upland hill farm in the Yorkshire dales, her work draws on lived experience to explore these issues. Through Daughters of the Soil, Coates’ lens brings forward a poignant reminder of the unseen yet essential role of women in shaping the agricultural landscape of the UK.