On the 27th November last year, the Mayor announced that a new public garden of blossom trees was to be created to commemorate Londoners who have lost their lives to Covid-19 and the impact the virus has had on all of us since March.
This new garden is being developed in partnership with the National Trust and with support from Bloomberg. The Edible Bus Stop® and Davies White Landscape Architects were chosen as the designers and landscape architects of the memorial and Rosetta Arts were chosen to work closely with the community on its development. Local artist Junior Phipps is collaborating on the design of a path and public benches.
As a member of the GLAs Community Engagement Team I have had the honour to be involved in the development of the garden. It has given me the opportunity to work not just with colleagues from the GLA but also externally with our partners.
I have asked Zoe Hardie from Rosetta Arts and Lucy Footer and Sara Masters from the National Trust to share their thoughts on this new public garden and why it is so important to Londoners to have this space for reflection and remembrance.
Zoe Hardie, Rosetta Arts
Zoe writes:
When Rosetta Arts was selected as the community engagement lead for the London Blossom Garden project it was a big deal for us: we’re a small grassroots charity that operates in one of the most deprived corners of East London.
Our home borough Newham was being hit exceptionally hard by COVID, and we were well aware that the diverse communities we serve across East London were feeling its impacts disproportionately due to a range of local vulnerabilities and inequalities.
We were working with people that had been shielding for months and had seen their mental health suffer; those that were recently bereaved; people who had lost their incomes; others on the front line as key workers; and young people struggling from being away from the classroom and their friends.
It was clear to us early on that the partners working on this project, from the landscape architects through to the National Trust, were serious about putting these voices front and centre to create an environment that wouldn’t just look right but would feel right as a welcoming place where Londoners could reflect on what they were going through. But how to work with such sensitive and important matter? We tasked four of our brilliant community artists - Sylvia Morgado de Queiroz, Larissa De Filippo, Ada Jusic, and Sylvie Ganachaudwe - to deliver multi-arts workshops that encouraged exploration of how the pandemic and lockdown was felt through the senses. From that basis, the residents were invited to share how the London Blossom Gardens would work for them. Despite a huge range of ages, backgrounds and situations, we quickly saw some common themes:
‘I want somewhere peaceful and relaxing...’
‘I don’t want to feel crowded...’
‘I would like to feel well when I’m there...’
‘It should just feel open and allow you to have space...’
‘I would like it to be quiet...nature has been an important feature that got me through this lockdown period...’
Residents were yearning for a serene space to escape the city with smells of flowers and fresh air and the colours of the natural world. A place that is inclusive, catering for the young and the elderly and celebrating the diversity of East London. Somewhere that allows the community to make it a space of its own.
This has been a profound experience to be part of and we’re grateful for every single person that delved into their personal experiences to help make these gardens a place of sanctuary for Londoners for years to come.