“The project has inspired my life. My attitudes and behaviour have changed as a result.”
Participant

“Cooking and eating together created a sense of community and an understanding of the importance of intergenerational communication and connection.”
Participant

“I have watched all the young people flourish and grow in confidence, others have broadened their perspectives, and have been creative in ways they were unaware of. I htikn it’s a great vehicle for developing confidence and creativity. This is excellent.”
Participant

“So much poetry and tenderness throughout – I have 50 favourite moments, all touching me deeply.”
Audience Member

“Encourages me to keep exploring, cultivating, playing, fighting, crying, connecting and deepening.”
Audience Member

“It was very moving. I felt that everyone spoke from the heart and that forged a feeling of connection amongst everyone present.”
Audience Member

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A Little Patch of Ground Devon 2011

A Little Patch of Ground is a pioneering intergenerational food growing and performance project.

A Little Patch of Ground 2011 was a food growing and performance project that took place in Dartington, Devon involving 25 local people from the South Devon area. Each week, beginning in May, this culturally diverse intergenerational group met to create their own permaculture inspired vegetable garden.

Image Gallery

The group cooked and ate together, and through a variety of media explored thoughts on food, resources, climate change, sustainability and interdependence.

Participants learned to explore the world as our shared home, through the sharing of personal stories about moments of connection in nature and undertaking documentation and writing tasks about special places outdoors. Through creative writing, making and drama activities the group took a journey together, inspired by eco-philosopher Joanna Macy‘s behaviour change cycle of: Gratitude, Despair, Seeing with New Eyes, Going Forth.

In the last weeks of the project, these transformative personal experiences were woven together into a multi–media performance incorporating text, image, objects and movement that intimately relected the shared stories, thoughts and ideas unearthed during the project. There were three performances in October which took place at Dartington and Totnes, Devon.

The project was twinned with an urban version of A Little Patch of Ground which took place at Toynbee Studios in the East of London. Each group met and created their projects independently in their respective localities, although they also found ways of sharing their contrasting urban and rural contexts with each other throughout the process and took a trip to see each other’s performance at the end of the project.

This project was funded by the Arts Council of England and supported by Artsadmin, Dartington Hall Trust, Transition Town Network and the Permaculture Association.

Project Links

8 min Patch Documentary | Video Record of Performance - unedited | Image Gallery | Blog | Recruitment Flier | Performance Flier | Article in Positive News | Recommendation on Guardian Theatre Blog | Article on Treehugger

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