Hosted by art curator Tami Fadahunsi and horticulturist, writer and artist Edward Adonteng, this session will be a reflective evening set around our London today.
London, as a city, is absurd. Not one corner looks identical. Keeping in the context of Sowing Roots, with the melting pot of cultures that London offers, how did we get to that point?
Looking backwards and around us, we will ask the important questions as to how the pioneers created such a surrealist space and how we, in the present, continue to maintain such vividness.
A Discourse on Spaces
Inspired by our Sowing Roots project which explored the gardening cultures brought to the UK by Londoners of Caribbean and African heritage, we have invited horticulturist, writer and artist Edward Adonteng to curate this series of talks, A Discourse on Spaces.
What is the importance of space to humanity? How do the spaces that we inhabit define us? What happens to these spaces when different worlds collide?
In London, intersections and cultural exchange place the city in an ever-evolving state of hybridity. No two streets are quite the same. This reflective series, influenced by the contributions of the Sowing Roots exhibition, will explore gentrification, immortality, conflict, heritage, sustainability and the movement amongst peoples through a plethora of stories, conversations and perspectives.
Speakers
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Tami Fadahunsi
Tami Fadahunsi
The motivation behind THEGREATFAD was framed by a desire to educate demographics that have found it difficult to relate to or understand art, some of whom subscribed to the belief that art was a sport for the affluent and dimmed themselves to be unworthy. Acting as a vehicle for her own personal self-education and art exploration, THEGREATFAD is sustained by an avid interest in contextualising art relative to our current social, economic and political circumstances, seeking to highlight the issues we face in present society.
More recently, THEGREATFAD celebrated its anniversary collaborating with experimental artists and photographers on our first print collection. Offering fellow art appreciators the opportunity to turn their spaces into more intimate exhibitions of their own, making an audience of their friends, family and themselves. Working with artists who implore various media forms in their work created an emphasis on sustainability as well as longevity of prints. THEGREATFAD takes root in art experiences that last.
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Edward Adonteng
Edward Adonteng
Edward Adonteng is a horticulturist, writer, poet, artist and academic whose focus revolves around developing platforms for human beings to thrive and fully exercise their ingenuity.
Within academia, his work focuses on cultivating revolutionary humanist, anti-colonialist thought/practice and the commitment towards building a praxis for decolonisation in the 21st century. His recent bachelor’s dissertation, “Bridging Anti-Colonial Thought: To what extent is Fanon’s anti-colonialist political thought a development of the theories of the Harlem Renaissance and Negritude Movement?” was published in December 2021.
As a Co-Director for the Ital Community Garden in Bellingham, South London, he affirms the importance of young people entrenching themselves within the realms of horticulture, doing away with dogmas of gardening being for a certain demographic of people. To grow is to be human.
