When The Seeds Fall: Becky Warnock
Growers from Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and Wildlife Project (MFGWP) worked with artist Becky Warnock over the summer of 2024 to create When The Seeds Fall; two exhibitions at Moulsecoomb Railway Station Footbridge and on Brighton seafront.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary year, the garden was founded by a group of friends who took over a derelict strip of council land. The project is now an important green urban space, connecting people with gardening, food, and nature, with inclusivity and diversity at its heart.
Offering horticulture and woodland skills, cooking, plus education and social opportunities to everyone, the project engages young people from within and outside mainstream education, with outdoor activities and therapeutic support, eco-therapy and outdoor lessons complementing the school curriculum.
Along with pupils at Moulsecoomb Primary School, Becky developed a programme of photography-based activities creating visual stories about the garden and what makes it such a special place.
“I love that the garden explores the connection between collective wellbeing and nature. It’s rooted in the understanding that mental health, like physical health, fluctuates continuously and requires upkeep, just like a garden needs care and nurture.” says Becky.
Resulting images feature in the eleventh edition of the biennial Photo Fringe festival, October, with outdoor exhibitions directly outside the forest garden on Moulsecoomb Railway station as well as in the thoroughfare of Rainbow Square at Brighton beach. We hope that more people will discover the good work by MFGWP.
There will also be a learning resource for local school children, drawing attention to food production, local community gardens and the role photography storytelling plays with gardening, wellbeing and campaigning for a greener planet.
Daisy Brown, the volunteer coordinator at Moulsecoomb Forest Garden, says “Our charity isn’t just about gardening. It plays an important part of the social glue that binds communities together, with all types of people, young and old, pupils having problems at school and people with learning difficulties working together in a beautiful, fun and genuinely inclusive environment. Growing, cooking and eating delicious food together is a big part of it. We’re really happy to be working with Photo Fringe and that this project will share our stories with so many new people.”
When The Seeds Fall is funded by Brighton & Hove City Council’s Shared Prosperity Fund, Chalk Cliff Trust, East Brighton Trust and Arts Council England.
The exhibition at Moulsecoomb Railway Station Footbridge will remain in situ beyond our festival. From the top of the bridge you can see over into the forest garden beyond. We hope it brings yet more visibility to the fantastic work taking place there and in Moulsecoomb Primary School as well as bring thoughtful artwork to an otherwise typical railway bridge illustrating what incredible community activity takes place within a stone's throw.
[image by Syl Ojalla]
[image by Syl Ojalla]
About Becky Warnock
Becky Warnock is an artist and educator based in London. Alongside her practice, she lectures at London College of Communication.
Her work is collaborative and research-based, often including participatory workshops using photography and other mediums to initiate dialogue. Working across photography, film and performance, her practice is developed through relationship-building and meaningful engagement.
With a background in community engagement and support work, Becky’s practice is engaged with the ethics and structures of care and collective experience. Her work is often situated within mental health and trauma discourse, moving outwards from active grief using creative processes as tools to articulate complex and layered conversations. She is particularly interested in connection and interdependence, plus the somatic processing that occurs when bodies come together in moments of reciprocity.
[Image: Becky Warnock by Joanne Coates]
