The Healing Power of Plants
One of the most enjoyable funding proposals I have worked on over the last year has been a successful application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for a project we have called: Voices of the Earth. This is a year-long project with the potential of extending into something much longer and larger in the future. The primary focus is an exploration into cultural and historical attitudes towards the healing power of plants for people and planet.
In our research for the project we discovered a wealth of history and drama surrounding medicinal plants that has unfolded over the last four hundred years or so in Camden. This led us on a trail from Culpepper’s tumultuous relationship with the Royal College of Physicians, who maintain a wonderful medicinal garden near Regent’s Park, to the British Library and the archives that inspired J.K Rowling as she wrote Harry Potter. The project will also give us an opportunity to learn more about the wealth of knowledge and experience that has come with the diverse cultural diaspora that have settled in Somerstown and Euston.
By tuning in to the treasures that literally lie beneath our feet we hope the coming year will bring awareness to both familiar plants like nettle and dandelion and far-out plants that we can grow locally - think Mandrake and Pomegranate. Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund grant we will be able to develop medicinal preservation and planting in the lesser known and the newer green spaces that Global Generation is involved with, this includes; the Story Garden at the British Library and the Gantry Garden at Regent’s Place, the rooftop of Richard Cobden Primary School, the playground planters at Netley Primary School, St Pancras Church Yard, the courtyard of Hopscotch Asian Women’s Network and possibly parts of Drummond Street and the windowsills of St Pancras Library.
In the spirit of democratising Heritage, i.e. privileging other voices alongside specialist knowledge, a group of Young Voices of the Earth Fellows will work with us to curate the findings of our medicinal journey. The fellows are all graduates of GG’s various programmes. In true Global Generation style the project will incorporate different ways of knowing; hands on gardening, tea tasting and cooking, photography and creative writing along with storytelling and theatre supported by Theatre Complicite who are partnering with us on the project. The other partners are The British Library, LB Camden (Arts and Culture and Green Spaces) and Hopscotch. Most of the partners are also members of the King’s Cross Knowledge Quarter, who are keen to develop creative and meaningful ways for their membership to collaborate and share resources with the local community.
As well as being a platform for developing collaboration within the wider community, already the project is providing a welcome opportunity for knowledge sharing within the Global Generation team. I am excited and somewhat gobsmacked at how much collective knowledge we have on the team which I was pretty much unaware of. Here are some of the comments that came from our first internal planning session:
Mailaika - I love the diffusion of knowledge this project will bring, especially plant knowledge and I am excited to see what the children will bring to the project. It will be a great way to connect our different gardens into a cohesive story.
Charlotte - You have to excuse my bubbling over with enthusiasm as this is what my life’s passion is! I am also working closely with my herbal teacher in what I bring to the project as I am doing a focussed training as an apprentice within the School of Intuitive Herbalism.
Kiloran - There is so much potential in exploring how we can unlock knowledge about plants and to consider how political and social plants are. I focussed on how this appears in literature during my English degree. It is great to talk about how we can heal ourselves through medicinal plants; not just ourselves individually but also groups of people.
Rod - I am looking forward to seeing how our Storytelling will develop through the project and how we can get the children excited about it all.
Notes from the Garden
A puncture is not how I envisioned starting the day, no one ever does. They always seem to happen when you’re in a rush, people are expecting you, and the weather is particularly…challenging.