Unearthing new narratives. Exploring community connections. Delving deep into the roots of the garden. This May sees our first Firelight of the season, bringing bright sparks together around the flickering flames at Potager Garden for an evening of fresh stories, perspective, food, art and possibilities. From farming to foraging, wilderness to wordsmiths, conservation to conversation – we can’t wait to get together again and be inspired.
Alongside our line-up of speakers and artists who’ll get your synapses firing (see below), there’ll be a short guided tour of Potager’s vegetable gardens, delicious fireside food from their talented kitchen team, and an adventurous homemade bitters beverage to wash it down. And all for only £17 a ticket.
This Firelight takes our recent Strike Issue 8, ROOTS as its leaping off point, digging deeper into some of those stories and branching out from them too.
Potager Kitchen Menu:
Braised chickpeas and dates with whipped feta, served with a grilled spring salad comprising peas, asparagus, wild garlic and sorrel.
Tickets are available now via Eventbrite.
Oliver Udy
Photographer, publisher, teacher and general facilitator of things, Oliver has been making documentary photographs for a long time, and has exhibited internationally. The main focus of his work is land use, and in particular the social and political shifts in European rural spaces.
Oliver also ran a photographic press for several years, publishing over 50 books from contemporary photographers around the world. This has led onto other curatorial projects, recently working with Vogue International on a publication and event, and several projects with Newlyn Exchange galleries to produce large scale interventions for exhibitions and events.
Marchelle Farrell
Marchelle is a gardener, writer and therapist, born in Trinidad and Tobago, but has spent the last 20 years attempting to become hardy here in the UK. She has trained and worked as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and is deeply curious about the relationships between our external landscapes and internal ones, the patterns that are reenacted in the human relationship with the land, and how they might be changed. When not neglecting it for the care of her young children, or to serve in various community roles, she spends much of her time getting to know her country garden in Somerset, and writing about the things the garden teaches her about herself. Her debut memoir, Uprooting, won the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing, and will be published by Canongate in 2023.
Carmel Lousada
Working in communications and events, Carmel also grows perennial plants and takes photographs. Developing events and creative practices that allow communities and the landscape to interact with each other, Carmel explores the stories that bring people and the land together.
Initially growing woodland trees, Carmel is now trialing edible and forest garden plants, with nurseries in Bristol and Falmouth.
Catherine Chong
Catherine is a climate economist and advisor in corporate ecological, social, governance (ESG). Co-founder of Farms to Feed Us, she has also held advisory and management positions in the financial and consumer goods sectors, as well as managing global responsible and impact funds and developing national and global sustainability accounting and reporting standards. She’s worked on trans-national and -industry projects with some of the most valuable brands in the world, in rainforest and wildlife conservation, sustainable crops certification, payment-for-ecosystem services, and sustainable product strategy in food, fashion, and other consumer goods. Currently focusing on creating circular systems for agroecology, we can’t wait to hear Catherine’s insights around the flames…
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+ Ticket price includes meal.
+ Please let us know of any dietary requirements by emailing [email protected]