Our Garden Open Day

Tulse Hill Estate, London SW2
Saturday 23 July 2011, 2-6 pm
In memory of Nana Darko Frepong.

The Open Day was part of Tulse Hill Diaries an ongoing body of work within Tulse Hill Estate which is at the core of my doctoral research project Living together: The artist as a neighbour.

The Open Day was organised as a follow-up to the Question Tour Walk/Picnic/Book, to try to get more Tulse Hill Estate residents aware of Our Garden as an open community facility. I wanted to have something special going on, as a focal point for the day, so I asked the good people of Energy Café if they would be able to come to South London for a day of off-grid powered cooking.

Councillor Ruth Ling took forward our small request for funding to Tulse Hill Forum, which gave us £200 to pay for leaflets and to transport Energy Café into Tulse Hill Estate. Because Our Garden is situated to the back of Purser House, just a few meters away from the spot where 18 year-old Nana Darko-Frepong had recently been shot dead, we asked his family if we could dedicate the event to his memory. The guys of Velocity Studio – a youth-led recording studio based in the Community Flat also at Purser House – agreed to do the music.

The weeks leading up to the Open Day were busy with leafleting and putting posters up across the whole Estate, counting almost 1,000 properties spread over 36 blocks. Residents associated with Our Garden and with THETRA (Tulse Hill Estate Tenants and Residents Association) helped with the leafleting. The experience of putting leaflets in all the flats of the Estate was educational. For once, it took a hell of a lot of time, and it brought to attention the fact that it is quite hard to communicate with all residents, which in turn acts as an impediment to greater resident involvement. There are no notice-boards or central point for sharing information, other than the door of the rubbish bin cupboards, where traditionally one sticks up posters and notices, hoping the rain would not wash them away.

I loved going to the top of each block and comparing the views, finding the mini-gardens that some residents cultivate out of their front doors, and occasionally having a chat with one of them. I also noticed that there were several flats that didn’t have door knocks, letterboxes or any other door fittings, and I wondered why. There were hardly no boarded up flats, which is a good thing, and I can see that now the Council has a policy of turning over properties really fast. We recently had two flats in our block that were refurbished and let out again within a month of being vacated.

Finally, the Open Day arrived. Ella Gibbs arrived early with Energy Café. It was exciting to see this 1950’s horsebox now fitted as a mobile kitchen, coming up Tulse Hill and driving into the Estate. We spent all morning opening it all up and loading it with natural fuel and water. The beautifully restored trailer was a real eye catcher, and several neighbours stood in their balconies looking at us, probably wondering what was going on. We soon attracted the attention of Nathalie, a resident well known for wandering around the Estate singing at the top of her voice. She was not in one of her best days, and took off with some of my Census banners that I had brought along to decorate Energy Café.

Energy Café is a community mobile kitchen, the brainchild of artists Ella Gibbs and Amy Plant (also known as Pilot Publishing). Ella and Amy are some of my oldest London friends, and in my opinion probably the most inspiring artists of my generation. I owe a very great deal of who I am as an artist, to the privilege of having been a witness and a contributor to their many remarkable community-based projects.

Energy Café started its life at Gunpowder Park back in 2008, and in 2010 was fitted to be a fully mobile kitchen, thanks to a grant from The Arts Council England, and the voluntary work and donations of many different individuals and organisations. It has a Henry Ranger Wood Burning Stove, a 130W Solara solar panel attached to Sally the Power Trolley, and a range of other ingenious devices for off-grid cooking. You can read a detailed inventory of the kitchen furnishings at the Energy Café blog.

First to arrive were two policemen wearing suits and ties. Because of Nana’s murder, the police is now all over the place now. They obviously had notice of the event and that it was dedicated to Nana’s memory. They came on official duty, in appearance to pay respects, but as it was clear from their insisting interrogations, they really came to gather “intelligence”. We were really busy trying to get everything ready, so their unimaginative questioning was pretty annoying. I was surprised at how bad they were at it too, trying to be casual, like they were just making small talk. They asked things like: “Would you say that there is a decent community here, but just a few people are causing a lot of trouble?” Talk about “leading questions”. When they got their little notebooks out and asked for my name and address we entered proper interrogation mode. They eventually got bored of being ignored and left.

Then people started to arrive, and the day got going. The flow of people was steady and gentle, but it was a lot of work to keep it all going and we couldn’t sit down or stop to eat in the whole day.

There was so much to do. Keeping the fire burning, coordinating all the help that was being offered, talking to people that wanted to know more about Our Garden and Energy Café. These are some of the highlights of the day, and the wonderful people that made it all happen.

Djelikani made our signs and gave Ella a manicure.

Owen from Sprouting 56 came along armed with a hammer, to help us build our very own compost boxes. These are Owen and Johnny busy at it.

We had a surprise visit of the Judges from the Estates in Bloom competition. Diane Skidmore had entered us into the competition without us knowing. It was really great to get their praise. Because it is just a handful of us involved, and we don’t have much time to dedicate to the gardening, we sometimes feel that Our Garden is not as good as the more “productive” growing projects that are springing all over the place. But they said Our Garden was beautiful (which it is, but not to our credit) and that our attempts at growing food were impressive for beginners. They recommended that we build a wormery.

We harvested potatoes, lettuces, onions and spinach from Our Garden, and used them to cook a menu featuring Spanish omelette, spinach soup and green salad. The other Tulse Hill Estate gardening project (Tendring House Children’s Garden) brought a big box of produce and our local “impromptu” chefs, Ruth and Jenny used them to make some vegetarian spicy rice, and a delicious stir-fry.

We had a more traditional barbeque running alongside, churning out a steady stream of sausages and burgers, and vegetarian brochettes courtesy of Neil and Johnny.

Our lovely neighbour Veronica saved the day when she came down from her flat armed with a small plastic table, and loads of patties and chicken wings. She single-handedly fed a large contingent of teenagers unimpressed by the healthier food on offer. My attempts at getting one of them to try Ruth’s spicy rice was met with a shrunken face and a disgusted “that looks mushy”.

Later in the afternoon, Derek of Velocity Studios came along with his laptop, and after some technical manoeuvring, managed to get it plugged into Sally the Power Trolley and the music got going.

The police made a further appearance later in the afternoon, storming in with a couple of Marias to chase the kids and up and down the balconies. Apparently, they have been called with reports of a burglary that turned up not to have happened at all. This kind of “police intervention” is an everyday occurrence at Purser House, which is a hanging out spot for teenagers in the Estate. This time, the well-rehearsed choreography of “cops vs kids” was played out in front of a viewing audience of Open Day attendees, which included many startled residents who are not daily exposed to the ongoing police incursions into this part of the Estate. The police went as they came, and the party resumed.

Throughout the day, lots of people came by, ate, drank, helped cooking, doing dishes and tidying up, chopped wood and talked to each other. Residents and visitors of all ages had a chance to explore and enjoy Our Garden and collected herbs and flowers We failed to count them, or to take down their contact details, or to make them fill “evaluation forms”. But since we were really busy chopping onions and serving snacks, we might be forgiven for this small negligence. We do think everybody had a really great day.

Once the trickle of residents wound down, we started to pack Energy Café up. As night fell, only the teenagers stayed out and became increasingly boisterous. The girls – some of them with their babies and smaller siblings straddled on their hips – looked on from the playground area. The boys run up and down the balconies, throwing plastic bottles at each other, shouting abuse, and smashing up empty flowerpots. The energy was quite intense and intimidating.

Ella and I got a bottle of wine that had been left unopened, and drank it slowly, sitting inside Our Garden, whilst we watched the kids’ antics. We stayed there for a long time, “babysitting” Energy Café and observing in some astonishment the behaviour of these young people. Whilst it was clear that as far as they were concerned there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, it felt really wild to us, and at the same time incredibly sad and hopeless. It only took a few weeks for the whole nation to witness a similar spectacle played out at a much large scale and intensity, in the riots that hit UK city centres in August 2011.

Eventually, the madness subdued and we felt reasonably assured that Energy Café will be safe for the night. We headed home, managed to eat something, and went to sleep. I woke up to tell Ella that I had a nightmare. I dreamt that when we went to look for Energy Café, it was gone. She told me she used to have similar “anxiety dreams”. A little later, Ella collected an unscathed Energy Café from Purser House parking lot, and drove it back to its home in East London.

A few days later, Ella called me to tell me my dream had come true. The trip to Our Garden was Energy Cafe last public outing. It had been stolen overnight, whilst temporarily stationed in a secured car park in Hackney. In Tulse Hill Estate we were shocked and saddened to hear that just after visiting us, Energy Café had disappeared without trace. It had proved to be such a hit with the neighbours that we were already talking about bringing it down again, but for a longer period of time. At every place where Energy Cafe had been, a picture out its window was taken to document its journeys. This is the view over Tulse Hill Estate, the last place where it was shared and enjoyed.

Energy Café was a much loved community resource. It is thought that it was stolen to order, which makes you realise that we indeed live in a widespread culture of selfishness and disregard for the commons. We are all wondering who could do such a thing. Because it was also an eco project, it seems even harder to believe that someone would appreciate it so much as a valuable, to actually steal it and take it out of communal use. If you see or hear anything about Energy Café’s whereabouts, please get in touch or report it at Energy Café’s blog.