The first Horse and Art Research Program was held in Barnag between 4-10 August 2015. It was an intensive week with the participation of 10 international artists with diverse artistic backgrounds including, visual arts, design and dance. Participants came from England UK, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, USA, Ireland and the Netherlands. We had an intensive one-week program with a focus on introductions of personal practices and to find some crossings between them, so to establish the basics of a discourse on and around Horse and Art. Lessons of horsemanship, horsearchery, anatomically correct riding and horsehealing was held as well as excursions cross-country. By the end of the week the group put together an intuitive performative event, which was part of a show in the Barnag Village Fest for the local community. The village community was open for and happy with the unconventional artistic experience, the Horse and Art group offered. The group named itself and its joint work Humane. This experiment evolved from the discussions and we consider it as an important outcome of the porject. Humane (the group, the joint work and its documentation) was a result of a successful group communication, in which the liasion are horses and art. The success of the event is a good starting point for more to come in the next Horse and Art programs. Although this was not planned in advance, we are very happy that a relationship between contemporary art experiments and the local community could take place in Barnag. However crucial results of the first Horse and Art summer program apart from the establishment of the Horse and Art debate, are also that of important friendships and professional collaborations. Something new and exciting have been started in 2015, which we would like to take further in 2016.

Course Leaders were Veszely Beáta and Szmrecsányi Márton in collaboration with Fanni Niemi-Junkola, MFA, who is an artist and Senior lecturer in Fine Art in Tampere University of Applied Sciences, a horse masseur and craniosacral therapist (Finland).