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Reclaim our Roots is a community herbalism project, encouraging participants to engage with the seasonal cycles through the exploration of local plant companions.
In 2024 a group of people came together to explore the herbs growing wild around the site at Hawbush Gardens, to connect with each plant, learning about their virtues and weaving connections between art, community and nature.
At each session we met a chosen plant ally, guiding us into deeper connection through activities like tea tasting and crafting folk medicine while sharing our personal plant stories and collaborative creativity.
We are now planning the next evolution of this project, due to begin again in March 2025. To enquire about participating please email Clare at ekhocollective.com
Tending is part of the Growing Land Connections Project, over its first year a diverse group of people have gathered each week on the wellbeing garden, using the 12 permaculture principles and the ethics; Earth Care, People Care and Fair share, to consider how we might influence the wellbeing of our Place, People and Planet.
Tending is an exploration of how we can all make small changes to collectively make a big impact towards addressing climate change. At the end of our first year we have enjoyed an inclusive, nourishing, gathering space, learnt skills and techniques to grow in a regenerative way and developed a climate action plan for our Tending community
Exploring The Edges 2024 -Engaging with Marginalised People in Marginalised Places.
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Seeking the Gifts of the Green Man
Over 3 sessions we co-created a project with The Fringe Dwellers (LGBTQ+, mental health issues and long term disabilities including neurodiversity) based around Green Man Entry, Lower High Street Dudley – a transitional passageway between Dudley College and the High Street.
We explored the story of our local place – Green Man Entry and reinvented the message for our times whilst recognising and celebrating our own wild nature and place within the wider ecosystem.
Many cultures expressed their beliefs and ideas about nature in the form of a spirit or character. The image of the Green Man appears throughout time. It symbolises the relationship between man and nature. He appears in two main guises, a single leaf mask or a male head with vegetation pouring from his mouth to form his hair and beard. It is now often used as a symbol of seasonal renewal, regeneration and ecological awareness.
Our project encompassed Green Man mask making. Green Man Alley ecology, moss -between the cracks, Kokedama installations, yarrow plant giveaways, spoken word poetry, performative social arts and storytelling of a new myth and modern fairytale.
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The barriers people face to take up space- Canal Project
A co-created project with Sarah Round of Bicycle Adventure Club offering a direct invitation to our LGBTQ+ members within the local community.
Over 3 sessions we provided a collaborative, safe and inclusive space for people to come together, explore our local ecosystem and have open & honest discussions about physical and figurative edges and how they shape our lives and experiences.
On a willow and twine grid frame we created a visualisation of our boundaries and invited participants to contribute to our countermap using poetry, artwork and the natural materials foraged from the local green spaces of the canal pathway around our site.
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Calling Back the Wild
Co-created with Katy Rose Bennett- musician, and Mom’s Mindful Hub- a peer support group for parents experiencing pre/post natal depression and mental health challenges and their children.
These three shared communal singing events invited a wide range of participants of all ages to celebrate our place amongst nature. We also explored how our environment can shape our vocal imagination and help us to reconnect with rituals, experiences and the language of Nature that we have lost over time.
Loss is the tune of our age. Hard to miss and hard to bear. Creatures, places, and words disappear. day after day, year on year. But there has always been singing in dark times-and wonder is needed now more than ever. “To enchant” means both to make magic and to sing out. So let these spells ring far and wide, speak their words and seek their art, let the wild world into your eyes, your voice, your heart. “The Lost Spells” by Rob McFarlane
These People, This Place
The four art installations, used materials specific to the industrial/historical elements of Brierley Hill and a mini documentary explored personal connections to the town.
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Commissioned by Historic England, Dudley Council and Brierley Hill Cultural Consortium, a group of residents created the art in what they call an exploration their personal identities and links with Brierley Hill.
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The groups gathered to produce large scale, six foot DNA strands incorporating: steel; wood, willow, buttons and leather; glass; and hardware fabric and jewellery.
A documentary was produced to go along with the project. Other Heritage Action Zone projects were invited to the event including 100 Faces of Brierley Hill, Comicon with Brierley Hill Library, Workshop24 Radio Public Library and singer/songwriter Dan Whitehouse with the Brierley Hill Songbook.
Hosted by the Ekho Collective CIC.