Semillando - Spanish Seedlings

Thanks to the lovely Fernando García-Dory for suggesting we join this weekend event run by Intermediae at Matadero in Madrid.

We presented What Will The Harvest Be? for the first time to an International audience and had a chance to hear about these other projects too:

re:farm the City (Hernani Dias)
Aulagarden (faaq)
Can Masdeu (Javier Montellano)
56 st blaise (Atelier AAA) - who also made ecobox

We also got to spend three hours cycling round Madrid with Fernando and a big group of other cyclists looking at actual and potential green spaces.

Posted Wednesday 30th September, 2009 at 11:39 am by Nina

A Circle of Thanks!

As you can probably tell with only three days to install the show at Jaywick Martello Tower and the list of 'ingredients' Karen mentioned below it was quite hard work!

I've just been popping some photos of both the installation madness and the finished show onto Flickr.

Big thanks go to everyone who worked so hard on it:

Tim Olden & James Barnard on the build,
Gill & Pam on the flowers,
Chris, Lindsey & Cerith on the planting
Everyone who made the miniature gardens
and all the JMT staff ... I don't think they quite knew what they were in for!

Fingers crossed with lots of careful watering the show will last the full three weeks.

Posted Monday 21st September, 2009 at 7:24 pm by Nina

A Circle of Happiness

Just back from sunny Jaywick (Essex) where our show A Circle of Happiness (named after an early local social club) has opened at the Martello Tower there. It runs till Oct 4th and is a bizarre combination of (amongst other things) 35 miniature gardens, 225 potted hydrangeas and over 1000 wildflower plants.

Posted Friday 18th September, 2009 at 10:18 pm by Karen

What Will the Harvest Festival Be?

Things are hotting up for this Saturday's big (free) event (12-4pm) at our Abbey Gardens project, What Will the Harvest Festival Be? and we are thrilled to have Sam & Sam Clark of legendary eaterie Moro cooking with our very own garden produce from about 1.30pm on the day....
Get all the details on the day and how to enter the various competitions here.
We hope you can make it to our East London garden of eden....

Posted Tuesday 8th September, 2009 at 2:39 pm by Karen

Only Four Days For Your Vegetable Sculpting

Yes our big event at Abbey Gardens - What Will The Harvest Festival Be? is fast approaching. For those of you - adults or children - working on entries for the vegetable sculpture competitions I thought I would post these as inspiration, made by some small friends of mine for the a flower show in Mull. They were reluctant for me to photograph them as they were a few days old by the time I saw them - still quite expressive I felt though!

More details of the whole event (with guest chefs Sam & Sam Clark of Moro) over on the WWTHB? site.

Posted Tuesday 8th September, 2009 at 2:30 pm by Nina

Exmoor National Dress on the catwalk again

My photo portraits and short film are on show down in Somerset until Oct 10th:
Brewhouse Theatre & Arts Centre
Coal Orchard
Taunton
Somerset
TA1 1JL

More detail on venue and times on
the website here

Posted Monday 7th September, 2009 at 6:22 pm by Karen

Anthony, Siouxsie & the 'La Perms'

As some of you might know (!) cats are close to the 'Somewhere' shared heart and for some months we have been trying to work on a new film looking into cat breeders and their in depth knowledge of feline genetics. We have done some shooting at different cat shows but this week it's crunch time with the deadline for the terrifyingly titled Sheffield 'Meet Market' looming.

So I will be forever grateful to Anthony Nichols (and his La Perm cats) for spending his Sunday letting me grill him on film about all the ins and outs of cat breeding and busting some commonly held cat genetics myths ...

All ginger cats are toms - not, it turns out, true
All white cats are deaf - not, it turns out, true

Only white cats can have blue eyes ... almost true.

Rather conveniently one of Anthony's cats has different coloured eyes, a good find when you're trying to show something about genetics in a visual way!

Posted Monday 24th August, 2009 at 9:12 pm by Nina

Flower arranging is the new rock 'n roll

FLOWERS-4-U
Somewhere hosts a free flower-arranging workshop
at Abbey Gardens, Sat. 22nd Aug 12-4

Join us for a fascinating workshop with Margot Cooper, an experienced floral lecturer and demonstrator from the National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies (NAFAS). Margot sits on the board of Flower Arranger Magazine and is now Treasurer of the NAFAS Woodford branch in East London.

She will help workshop participants select and pick flowers and foliage from the gardens, going on to guide you through making your own take-home arrangement.
This event is free, no booking neccessary!
Meet at Abbey Gardens, Baker's Row, London E15 at 12.00 - workshop ends at 4.00.
Feel free to make a day of it and also join us for the morning Garden Club Session too.
See the What Will the Harvest Be website for more info.

Posted Wednesday 19th August, 2009 at 12:08 pm by Karen

Compliments of the Compliment Sandwich

Thrillingly, the first few minutes of a recent podcast were dedicated to me and my longstanding but unrealised 'Ginger Zoo' concept. I think this might be my first and only ever radio 'shout out'.
If you don't yet subscribe to Juneau Projects 'Compliment Sandwich' I recommend you do.
It's a bit like enjoying the second half of a long car journey with Phil and Ben, a duo of amusing hitch-hikers you found on an M6 slip road near Birmingham.

See their blog here and you can subscribe.

Posted Tuesday 18th August, 2009 at 10:39 am by Karen

Living with the Tudors screening, Kendal, 20th August

You're invited to a special Cumbria Filmmakers Network screening (courtesy of Soda Pictures) of Living with the Tudors.
It will be in the Warehouse Cafe at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal, Thursday August 20th at 7.30pm, entrance a mere £3.
I'll be doing a director's Q & A session right afterwards too.

Posted Wednesday 12th August, 2009 at 9:54 am by Karen