(A Little) Patch of Ground

‘A Little Patch of Ground’ gathered residents from across Efford together to unearth and tell stories of the relationships people have with where the live and with the wider natural world around them.

Funded by Awards for All, we worked with Encounters Arts and used photography, film, writing, drama, collecting, cooking and planting to form a process and journey for the participants. Participants met each week for 12 weeks and had the opportunity to grow and eat together, develop their creative skills and work towards a sharing of the process which was performed live for their community in mid July.

Through the process they explored their relationship with the World, their community and each other; they created pieces of writing and devised performance ideas which were then used to shape the script and form the structure of their final performance. Over the weeks the group learnt how to develop and maintain a garden using permaculture principles, explored Efford allotment and the Valley, observed trees, listened to birds, cooked and shared new foods and recipes, drew, recorded, wrote and listened.

Samples of soil, plant life and food, as well as samples of personal stories images, ideas and experiences were drawn together from across the area and then cross-fertilised during the project.

The project has complimented the Grow Efford strand of our process.

Encounters associates Rebeh Furze and Emilio Mula worked with us to deliver the project with support from Ruth Ben-Tovim and Anne-Marie Culhane (who has worked with Take A Part for a number of years on food and growing projects). During the final performance the audience were invited to tour the community garden, visit the Shed On Wheels and learn more about the Patch project process before finally coming indoors to see the performance.

You can also view all the images from the project via Encounters on Flickr by clicking here.