Katie Surridge

These images document my back garden farm project I started at the start of the pandemic and continue to run. By following the link a you can see the full journey of this space, from muddy patch to a prize winning mini farm that now helps provide ingredients for community suppers.

I was awarded a lockdown grant from the Arts council and transformed my London garden in to a working backyard farm installation. Over summer I had over 60 varieties of edible plants, three chickens and probably Peckham’s first honesty box selling excess produce to raise money for a community supper project I started.

My lockdown art farm also won the Telegraph gardening competition.

I have become fanatical about growing and how green spaces , what ever size they may be , can be used as a tool to heal. I am using this latest work with @308farmspace to produce new materials for my sculpture and paintings, and most importantly as a means to build community as we eat together at a food bank project I run.

The act of eating and making food together is an important human ritual that benefits us beyond the biological need for food. The process of preparing it together helps us embrace social differences and nurture spaces of encounter, building connections between people, communities, projects and services.

Importantly I am interested in how it can also facilitate the circulation of ideas when eaten together and also lead to personal story sharing.