Our second meeting between Sonic Futures and Ian was on Lamlash Gardens.
The weather finally was on our side and we could get enough Sun to walk around one of the hidden treasures inside the Elephant and Castle concrete jungle. Inside the small street of Lamlash, just a couple for minutes away from the Shopping Centre, there is a beautiful community garden.
As soon as we arrived, we took some minutes to look around carefully what kind of different flora was growing in there. We found from lavender, basil, thyme, raspberries, rosemary, even some lemons. Since the gardens are not very big and the street is narrow we could feel, touch and appreciate the surrounding full of nature, even in the middle of a quiet calm environment of that afternoon. It was a perfect place  to wind down from our commuting and our daily routines.Â
The residents of Elephant and Castle and from around the neighborhood created some years ago this green space in the middle of the houses.
We had the chance to talk to one the ladies that owns a piece of this gardens. She was very kind to share her experience and why she started to collaborate with the creation of this project. One of the reasons she highlighted is that she became aware of the process of the food she consumed by buying at supermarkets stores like Tesco. She realized not only how different was the taste but what it took to grow her own vegetables. She acknowledges that now it has become more than a hobby, something that she really enjoys while taking care of her sloths and putting her hands on the soil. Her smile says it all when she explained how good she felt by contributing with this project. A big lesson she learned from gardening is patience and she has been proud that now she understands what it requires to get food on her table. Â
Despite the fact the area has been growing and gentrification has been a serious problem, she still has hope that this kind of community gardens enhance people to grow their own food and get involved in gardening and collaborative projects with green spaces. As she told us, the city needs more spaces like this to have life and is really fulfilling to find green areas in between a city that has been growing fast for the last years.
"Is sad to see sometimes that people don't even notice how much we need green life. They pass around this street and they don't even know this is community garden or sometimes they rip and take some of the herbs without knowing that us the neighbors worked in making that grow".
After listening to her experience, we took a walk around the neighborhood around the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre which is a symbol of what the area used be like many years ago. It was interesting to see how many buildings and specially flat renting has been a rising issue. The area has become more popular and it has caused displacements of communities that were settled in order to make it more commercial. It has been considered to remove the Shopping Centre to replace it for more buildings. As Ian and Dr. Chiara explained to us, there has been a lot of movements and protest against this from the neighbors and the different cultural communities affected.
Our final stop led us to a garden that is as well hidden between the urban jungle of the new buildings. Usually young people wander around or sit there with their friends just to chill for the rest of the day, there some others that take this space to take their dogs out for strolling. Although is a green public space, to create it mean some displacement of families. We even had the chance to read the time lime of how the Elephant and Castle neighborhood was formed and how the heart of this zone has been the multi cultural diversity.
We shared our thoughts about this while we sat down in the green grass and discussed the implications of making grow a city, urban spaces and how many people is affected on the way. Gentrification has been as issue that affects not only green areas but also there is a issue of belonging of communities and identity.
As a final activity, we all shared the pieces we had written since the last session. It was emotional and inspiring to listen a wholehearted writing by one of our classmates (who actually was celebrating her birthday that day). There has been no doubt each of the sessions has been moving each one of us in different ways and making us question about the life, the environment, the city, the places and the actions we might need to take to actually make this world better.
If you are interested in growing your own garden, this article will give you a hint with the first steps you need to take.