Project

The Wayward Plant Registry occupied a vacant shopfront this January in Granville Arcade, a 1930s indoor market in Brixton, as part of the Spacemakers initiative. The shop was transformed into a fog-filled, magical forest composed of unwanted x-mas trees with roots. This x-mas tree drop-off shop, which we called ExXmas Forest, hosted a picnic of performances and forest-themed readings and exhibited a photography catalogue of abandoned x-mas trees thrown to the bins in London. The week culminated in a community planting day of 25 trees on the grounds of the local secondary school, Evelyn Grace Academy. The school was delighted, and has invited the Wayward Plant Registry, in collaboration with the local recycled design group Brixton Remade, to conduct workshops with the schoolchildren to make recycled benches and signage for the forest.

Why was it created?

The Wayward Plant Registry is a project of social exchange and botanical desire.

A Wayward Plant, commonly referred to as a weed, is one growing where it is not wanted. They may be non-native, unsightly, invasive, high-maintenance, surplus or withering, and so are uprooted and abandoned, pulled from the earth as urban castaways. But wayward plants, whether common weeds, domestic breeds or rare botanical specimens, are truly in the eye of the beholder.

Before we had even heard the term "pop-up shop," the Wayward Plant Registry had been setting up halfway homes, or temporary spaces of exchange, for these unwanted plants, to bring out the full potential of their beauty and meaning. The Registry considers systems of exchange, the personification of plant-life, the human stories revealed through plant migrations, and the nature of botanical desire.

Siting the halfway home in a marketplace of local sellers strengthened our dialogue about alternative forms of exchange (including the exchange of stories and ideas), and the diversity of the area enabled us to engage a broader spectrum of the local community in a dialogue about community exchanges, gardening, recycling, waste and local forests.

Partners (individuals or organisations) that make it happen

The Wayward Plant Registry, Spacemakers, Freecycle, Evelyn Grace Academy, Brixton ReMade.

Where did the project looked threatened, how was this overcome?

As this is a project that engages the community in the design process (from sharing their stories and narratives to building a vision for the forest), we knew there would be unexpected results. We needed to source an entire forest of unwanted (but living) trees (primarily utilizing Freecycle), create a compelling theatrical set without funding, find a site to plant the trees (ideally through a local partnership, where the trees would be watered and cared for), and find people to participate in the planting day, and hope the ground wasn't frozen from the cold.

We certainly had a few technical glitches - there was a ice-cold snowstorm during our installation, we needed to create warmth in our open-faced shop, the shop's electricity was initially broken and on our second day, the sink flooded, creating a lake on our forest floor. (It truly smelled like a pine-scented grotto after that!) But everyone in the market was incredibly helpful, materials and resources were easily sourced from our shop-neighbours, and we were very lucky to have a warm, sunny day for our planting.

We actually had more than 60 offers for living, unwanted trees, just from a few posts on Freecycle, which makes it clear to us that this project could become a larger-scale forest initiative. We are now exploring the possibility of developing partnerships to make this happen.

The best story to come out of it (so far?)

Our forest picnic, with fog blowing through the market, was an absolutely magical moment. We were lucky to have, along some delicious mulled wine, three wonderful poets and the incredibly talented musician Mr. Solo perform against the backdrop of the forest, which provided the perfect stage set. Space Makers told us that our picnic, and these performances were a reference point for planning future events at the market. But it was exciting every time a new tree was dropped off at the forest. One tree even arrived by skateboard!

Impacts of the project and how they were measured

Evelyn Grace Academy now has 25 trees on the grounds of their schools. They love it, are caring for it, and are now working with us to plan a forest workshop for the kids, in collaboration with Brixton Remade. We also gave 10 additional trees to a number of our neighbors in the market, including a fruit-seller, a fish restaurant, a bakery and a Caribbean cafe.

We view this as a scaleable project - we are compiling documentation and will be approaching the forestry commission, local councils and tree farms to see if we could gain some institutional support and land-use for the following year. The Wayward Plant Registry will also be developing other pop-up unwanted plant adoption centres in temporary spaces in the months to come, including one for the London Festival of Architecture.

Budget/costs explanation

Space, electricity costs - free.
Council taxes - waived (as it was a short-term project).
Trees - donated.
Time - volunteered.
Skills - volunteered, including two professional photographers who joined us for the tree planting and an artist that specializes in pyrography to make signage. Another signpost was donated by the art group, Art-in-a-Van.
Guest Performances - volunteered.
Materials - salvaged or borrowed - including a black cloth stage-set backdrop from a photographer, paint, tools, bark chips for the ground, hot plate, palettes, shelving, carts to wheel the trees, fairy lights.
Transport - we rented a van for a day for tree pickups. This cost approximately 60 pounds.
Food / drink - we made mulled wine to hand out at the performances - this cost around 20 pounds. We could have asked for a donation to cover this cost, but decided to just inspire some good cheer on this cold winter day.
Deinstallation - we donated many of the materials to other shops, including willow branches for the sweet shop, paints to artists and fairy lights to a theatre group.

Brixton Village Market (part of the Spacemakers Initiative), Shop 82

Atlantic Road

SW9 8PS‎

visit www.waywardplants.org
Contact hello@waywardplants.org