Creating a Mobile Meadow, with Richard Reynolds, Simon Whitehead and Siobhan Davies Studios

I am working on documenting a series of projects about urban nature, urban gardening and sustainability in Greater London.  In the past weeks I was participating in a new project by Richard Reynolds, guerilla gardener based in London's Elephant and Castle area, where he is exhorting to become a gardener in odds places, and he has partnered with movement artist Simon Whitehead and Siobhan Davies Studios to create a Mobile Meadow in several steps.


The first event was a gathering at Siobhan Davies Studios yard, where you would be instructed by Richard on how to plant for creating a meadow.


And you were to choose which seeds you wanted to plant out of four identified as the best to nurture wildlife in the area. 
  

Once planted the pot with your name/seed on it, you are to decide if you want to take home with you until the next event in the calendar, or leave it to be tended with the organisers and on site, also until the next event.


The second part of the event was the day after at the at the actual site of the mobile meadow, where more guests were invited and to plant more pots, under Richard's instructions.


The site is a plot of neglected land in between two new developments, it is a mobile garden since there are no plans for how long "the garden" will last.  To "take" the neglected urban land and make it productive is one of the statements of Reynold's activities and especially this project's main goal and interest.


On June 29th, there the second phase of the project will gather gardeners to bring from home or take the ones at the site, and have a walk in the area and plant them as part of the regeneration of the area.  This will be part of the London Festival of Architecture 2014


A third part of the project will take part sometime in coming October, to collect seeds for the next year's planting.  There will be more images about the next phases of the project.

Comments

A mobile meadow! What a great concept in an urban environment! It would be great to see this concept catching on in cities around the world. Thanks for sharing photos and the details of the project, Lula.
Anonymous said…
Very cool and worthwhile project. More is needed like this in cities, especially in areas abandoned and derelict.
antigonum cajan said…
For the last ten years I have been documenting gardening in the asphalt/concrete urban context of Puerto Rico,with a critical focus based on ecoregion/flora/fauna.

In Facebook, Sociedad Horticultural Bouret or caribbeanbotanicalreview.blogspot are two sites with photo evidence of the environmental destruction in many cities in these latitudes, the tropical, that is. Good luck in your projects.
Anonymous said…
Lula, thanks for documenting. It's a great idea, and I'm delighted to see it taking off in Elephant & Castle, which was a pretty grim area of South London when I worked there 12 years ago.