Roseneath Gardens, Stoke Gifford
Home Sweet Home
Home Sweet Home celebrates native food and medicinal plants that grow in and around the new residential community at Roseneath Gardens, Stoke Gifford, Bristol.
The Public Art Programme responds to the sacrifice greenfield land and its natural plant inhabitants make, to allow us to develop much needed new homes to live.
Summer to Autumn 2021.
Artist
Kayle Brandon
Client
Clarion Housing Association Limited & Engie Regeneration Limited.
Local Authority
South Gloucestershire Council.
Address
The Commission
In summer 2021, a series of free public workshops were held in and around the new Roseneath Gardens residential neighbourhood, with artist Kayle Brandon and herbalist Christopher Roe mapping local native plants, recording local plant use stories and interactively demonstrating medicinal, edible and creative uses for plants in the area.
In Autumn 2021, Brandon created a bespoke brass plaque drawing together the knowledge captured from the workshops and mapping out local plant resources. This was installed in Roseneath Garden’s community park as part of a celebration event, marked with the planting of a new native fruit neighbourhood orchard.
The plaque is a permanent record of the native plant neighbours that the new residents are living alongside and allows future generations the chance to take rubbings to seek out their own natural resources from the area.
Workshops and Neighbourhood Exploration
Foraging Walk and Food Mapping Workshop – August 2021
Brandon and Roe spent a day with local residents exploring the local area finding, identifying, mapping and talking about native plants and their historic meaning and present day uses.
The group were invited to think about what was important about the area and how they could celebrate native species of plants through a new planting scheme for the development.
What kind of environment would you like to live in in the future?
“I’d hope that there was more greenery around and.. that people could be in the environment where, like, it’s not full of houses, and that it is somewhere almost to get away from like the every day, and it was just a bit more like calming.“
–
Lily (age 14),
local resident and workshop attendee
Medicinal Syrup Making, Natural Ink Dying & Cyanotype Printing
September 2021
Local residents, alongside Brandon and Roe, searched out local trees to forage natural material to make medicinal syrups with fantastic immune boosting properties, known to prevent and sooth symptoms of influenza & other winter viruses.
The group then used locally gathered plant material as inspiration for cyanotype print making and the creation of natural dyes.
Finally, the group selected native tree species to have as part of an autumn planting scheme for the site.
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Local residents in the second workshop with Kayle Brandon & Chris Roe
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Activities with local foraged finds
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Workshop attendee picking berries from a tree
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Medicinal Syrup Making with Herbalist Chris Roe
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Tree Planting & Food Map Celebration
December 2021
A celebration and unveiling of the local food map took place in winter 2021. This marked the installation of the new plaque and fruiting trees were planted by the community, alongside the taking of brass rubbings while drinking seasonal cider and apple juice!
“With making the edible map of the Roseneath area, what was lovely was meeting the people who came and who were related to that place…to start those conversations, and to start inviting people to make more responses and works about it… you know, arts practice is a great space for it.”
– Kayle Brandon
The Podcast Episode
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Kayle Brandon
Kayle Brandon is an inter-disciplinary artist, who works within public and social contexts.
