A new season, a new start for gardening and creativity

We are pleased to announce that Room to Be have been offered a new plot to develop in a much loved, well established community garden, offering our members a much wider variety of horticultural activities in a space already teeming with wildlife and opportunities to connect with nature.

Artist Manuela del los Rios joined us at our inaugural meet-up at the new garden and delivered a workshop to bring our Listen to the Lavender collaboration into its final stages.

For those of you who have not heard about the collaboration, Manuela has been working with us at Room to Be for the last six months with sound artist Lana al Khateeb to create a mixed media art installation (including sound, photography, storytelling, print and mark making and more) with a deep focus on listening. Our workshops together have seen us listening to nature, listening to each other, listening to conversations that might make us feel uncomfortable, listening fully and with an open heart. It is through listening we can be more curious about our own position in the world and our connection with nature and each other.

Manuela invited us to close our eyes and listen to the birds and the sounds all around us. We were asked to free flow draw what we heard and how they made us feel. We then worked with touch, taking cuttings from the garden and without looking, drawing what we could feel in our hands.

Those same cuttings we then turned into an assemblage piece and collage. Photos were taken and these will be used in the final zine we are creating for the Listen to the Lavender project.

The final installation will debut at POD! Community Art Gallery for Pride month and then tour three community gardens in Dundee before culminating in a celebration of queer identities and allyship later this year.