Looking back on 2023
As I walk into the Story Garden, I notice that the garden has now truly gone to sleep. It seems to have taken longer than usual as the weather has stayed mild. Like the plants around me, I am feeling ready for a mid winter pause, to rest and replenish myself for the year ahead. And so in these last short days of the year, as darkness falls upon us during the winter solstice, I finally stop and take a moment to look back on the year.
Whilst 2022 was a year of moving and transitioning, 2023 has been a year of settling in and grounding down. Below are a few of the many highlights from this past year.
Big Jarrah
With much relief from the whole team based at Paper Garden, settling in and grounding down is finally what is happening there! After 2 years of moving the garden across various locations and building the classroom, ‘Big Jarrah’ is now officially our new home in Canada Water. Big Jarrah is a two storey classroom, the biggest circular economy build in London, though there are rumours that it is the biggest in the UK, even Europe! The frame of the building is made from recycled donated railway sleepers from Network Rail, of Jarrah wood, an Australian hardwood; the walls are made of cordwood, an age-old construction method using short timber logs, with wood sourced from thinnings donated by Epping Forest’s forestry team; the windows were excess stock given by Scandinavian window manufacturer, Nordan and the floor is made from 200 doors reclaimed from a bank building in the City of London.
As you walk into the building, muddy boots come off and slippers come on. The building gives rise to a sense of awe from all that come through the door. As a team we now have a dry warm space to welcome groups of children, young people and local community members to cook, create, learn, gather and reflect together. We look forward to continuing to welcome 1000s of people into the space over the coming years.
Read more about the build of Big Jarrah here.
It was also featured in Architecture Today.
And it is on the longlist for a MacEwen Award as one of 32 entries from across the UK
Voices of the Water
Over at King’s Cross, we have also settled into our home on the canal, the Floating Garden, a widebeam barge moored opposite Granary Square. As part of our Heritage Lottery funded project, Voices of the Water, we have renovated the barge, held community events, school workshops and sessions with young people where they continue to design and build the space, right since the very first co-design of the space two years ago. Voices of the Water has also been a key theme of our work at Story Garden. During the summer we ran a four week holiday club in which children were inspired by mythical tales and underwater creatures and created their own life sized puppets, which ended in a procession from the garden to Granary Square. Our Young Fellows continue to be at the heart of the programme, and were part of the working group that created the Voices of the Water website.
New Website
Talking of websites, we worked with Tori Flower and Ed Ball as well as our Young Fellows this year to redesign our main website to make it more accessible and more reflective of the work that we do. Have a browse to find out more.
Our work beyond the gardens
We’re really pleased this year to have started an ongoing partnership with Heatherwick Studio, supporting them with their new Creative Education programme.
So far this has included training sessions with their design team in “GG’s approach to working with Young People”, which was co-delivered with our young Fellows, co-design sessions with our Generators to help decide what their creative education module would be, and a multi-year partnership working with local primary and secondary schools to bring children and young people to the sessions and help embed creative practice back into the curriculum.
So far this has been an exciting and fruitful partnership and we’ve enjoyed the passion and dedication from their team to bring creative education to the forefront and inspire the next generation.
leaning into the darkness
As is the custom this time of year, we are closing the year with many gatherings, from celebrations of the work and products that young people have created over the last months, culminating in community events at both the Paper Garden and Story Garden, with heartwarming food and beautiful singing by Sabina, one of the Generators; to our own end of year celebration in which we created a space to share our anger, rage and sadness for all the destruction and injustices in the world and also think and focus on what brings us hope. After a final community winter solstice event at the Story Garden on 21 December, we will be closing the gates of the gardens for a little bit to take a rest.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.”
Wendell Berry
In January and February, after a successful pilot last year of tuning more into the rhythms and patterns of nature, the Global Generation team will be leaning into the darkness of these winter months, and prioritising this time for reflecting, evaluating and planning. As Wendell Berry reminds us, in our fast paced and mechanised world in which we can turn the lights on at all times, it is important to make space to listen to what the dark can teach us. In a recent blog ‘Paddling and flowing in urgent times’, we try to articulate how we are doing this as an organisation.
Looking forward to 2024
As we look forward to 2024, there is no doubt that we have our biggest project lying ahead of us … the build of a permanent garden in King’s Cross. After what will be 20 years of being a somewhat nomadic organisation and 5 different sites behind us, always growing in containers such as skips to ease moving around, we will finally build a garden that is here to stay. A garden with deep roots that will be able to grow right into the soil. And not just for a few years, but for 999 years. This is an opportunity for the co-creation of the site to take on a different meaning, in which children who are involved today will grow up with the garden, for many generations to come.
On a recent visit to the site, the diggers were in full swing, breaking up the concrete. The contaminated soil from King’s Cross’ industrial history will be taken out with new soil brought in. From spring 2024 we will get access to the site for our community co-build process to take place. We will work with young people training them in natural and heritage building approaches, such as the build of a cob wall classroom, an office made of bricks handmade by the local community over the past year, and a green wood timber kitchen made with chestnut shakes, also created with 100s of people already over the past year. Read more about our plans and how you can get involved. We are looking for support in all its forms and shapes, from capital funding, to programme funding, to donations of materials and labour, and volunteers. Get in touch if you would like to help.
Did I mention that Global Generation is turning 20 years old in 2024? Stay in touch to find out how you can celebrate this with us over the coming year. We are looking forward to this new chapter and all that the next 20 years might bring!
For now, we wish you a restful and peaceful break and look forward to being in touch in the new year.
Nicole and Martina and the whole Global Generation team x
Notes from the Garden
I wake to a bright crisp winter’s day. Finally … after weeks of storms ravaging the country.
As the year ends we are reminded of the magic and beauty that our gardens bring, as places to come together and celebrate, even in difficult times. This year it has been challenging not to be taken over by fear and despair, with extreme weather events being mirrored in different ways across the world, from floods to droughts; with the most recent political events; with wars destroying land and displacing entire populations; and with the constant increase in the cost of living creating ever more inequalities between those that have and those that do not.