Urban commoning aims to counter the passive consumption of the neoliberal public realm by creating community around the cultivation of collective resources. Community gardens have come to represent so much about how commoning is imagined, but they raise important questions. Commoning is an energetic, messy process – manifested in the act of gardening – but its spaces and aesthetics can risk being co-opted as symbols of social inclusion, without challenging the unequal power structures of the public. What kinds of community are imagined in different modes of gardening, and what are the ecologies of these different imaginaries? Can we get past the co-opting of commoning aesthetics by thinking gardens as settings of communication, demanded by the conflicts and negotiations of sharing?
Andrew Bingham Anna-Louise Milne Aude Vuillominet Borbala Soós Carole Wright Cecily Chua Cherry Truluck Elisha Fall Ella Finer Hadley Beeken Henriette Gillerot
Leon Hughes Lou Marcellin Madeleine Milne Marco Veneri Maria Joranko Natasha Nicholson Nele Kempenaers Ryan Montgomery Sven Anderson Trevor Yeung
Blak Outside is a grass roots led, intergenerational, supportive of social housing residents, QTIBIPOC (queer, trans, intersex, Black, indigenous people of colour). The project builds on existing work, particularly the thirty years of community work of Carole Wright to provide a long-term legacy within the communities where she lives and works. Carole asked "what is a community garden", given that Peabody Blackfriars is behind closed gates and only available to estate residents, while Brookwood Triangle is open access. Questioning how commoning and community can be differently imagined, she led a route connecting gardens in the area.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1EvGXCEo5ZEw8DTfL-kFX2DFrSiBOLQ0&usp=sharing
| Bankside Garden | ||
|---|---|---|
| Surrey Row Garden | ||
| Brockwood Triangle | ||
| Diversity Community Garden | ||
| St George’s Garden |
Urban commoning counters the passive consumption of the neoliberal public realm by engaging communities in productive cultivation and maintenance of collective resources. Community gardening is just one manifestation, but one that offers a focal point for a wider debate about the nature of the public, and challenges and conflicts inherent in the common. The seminar was co-hosted by gardener and organiser Carole Wright in a community garden in Blackfriars Estate, London, and the afternoon walk explored the diverse manifestations of community gardening in the immediate surroundings.