A fundamental story we tell ourselves is one of separation and division. The idea that there is this thing called “nature”, that we are separate from and superior to, is our dominant way of seeing the world. We have tended to view nature as something there for us to control, dominate and use for our own ends.
If our existing way of seeing the world is one that seeks to divide and separate, could gardening help to reconnect us?
How, with greater awareness, might gardening help to heal some of our wounds, narratives and disconnection. And perhaps point us towards different ways of seeing and being in this world.
Can our gardens be a site in which we become kin with the world around us and where we might practice a liberatory way of being?
Join us as we discuss how gardening might help to connect us to a sense of place, to ourselves, to each other and to our more-than-human kin.
Speakers
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Sui Searle
Sui Searle
Sui Searle is a gardener and the creator of @decolonisethegarden [instagram.com/decolonisethegarden/] which focuses on bringing a decolonial lens to horticulture, and is editor of the online gardening newsletter, Radicle [http://radicle.substack.com/]. Both aim to seek possibilities of an otherwise.
She has worked in botanic, public, private and community gardens. She is interested in the garden as a site of an ever-changing co-creation with the potential for us to practice decolonial modes of being - a place to practice being in kinship and cultivating deeper relationships with ourselves, each other and our more-than-human kin. -
Shama Khanna
Shama Khanna
Shama Khanna is a London-based artist, educator and garden designer who grows. They are researching towards a PhD in liberatory (queer, anti-racist, slow) gardening at Kingston School of Art.
Shama has taught widely at universities including the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths and curated screenings, events and exhibitions internationally. Most recently, the public programme for Brent Biennial 2022; the Oasis residency at Forma and Peveril Gardens; and 'The Garden as a Refuge for Repair' at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge. Since 2013 they have curated the online platform Flatness (flatness.eu), a collective journey from networked cultures of the screen to the outdoors celebrated in their recent book ‘Queer Diasporic Futurity’.