What is Landscape by Heather Ring

Today we were lucky enough to have an afternoon of lectures from some very interesting & inspiring people, representing their companies & giving us a look into their work. The question raised was 'What is Landscape?' All the guest speakers gave their own interpretation of what they believe Landscape Is.

Heather Ring - Wayward Plants

• Plant Exchange: unwanted plants to create gardens.
• Plant adoption: ability for the public to "adopt" unwanted plants
• Guerilla Gardening: Planting/creating gardens without permission. Wayward Plants created a Guerilla garden on the corner of Upper Street next to the infamous Foundry.
• The Union Street Urban Orchard: created using all recycled materials (ie. palettes), contained a number of interactive elements, including; cider making shed, greenhouses, outdoor cinema, plant exchange & much more. There were a number of people who actually lived on the site in "eco-pods", these people helped manage & look after the site.
• Garden for medicine: another interactive garden to promote the history & information behind plants used for mecidinal use.
• Algae Garden (proposed): algae is a potential bio-fuel, this garden will celebrate the beauty of algae which main people do not realise.
  
• Little known history of Kensington Gardens - Camoflague: the use of plants & natural processes as a camoflague.

A brief rough quote from Heather on her views of What is Landscape? - "Landscape is an exploration at small scale...a way to see how people interact. Due to the economy small scale & temporary is often all you can do, are allowed to do."

I found Heather's presentation very interesting, it really opened my eyes to the way that small scale, temporary projects can really make a huge difference & attract such attention. I had seen the Union Street Urban Orchard on a website last summer & had fully planned to go....I'm now upset I let it slip my mind. I think she will offer a lot of inspiration to a lot of us, who maybe have worried about the prospect of working in an office with several layers of superiors, never feeling you are working towards what you really feel drives your enthusiam & inspirations.

Click here to find out more about Heather & Wayward Plants' work