Shama Khanna

Some action shots of many surprisingly melanated, often queer and brilliant cuties at the working weekend at @greatdixterofficial a few weeks back - I love to see it! Thanks to @fergusmustafasabrigarrett @coraliemlthomas and the team for your warmth, knowledge and hospitality. My health wasn’t the best and weird to miss mama’s day at home, but I value the opportunity to be part of this legendary garden and the thriving community around it.

Feel very fortunate to have caught the excellent ‘Garden Futures’ show at @vadundee (closes 25 Jan). The show references so many inspiring approaches to reparative, sustainable gardening from around the world, unsurprisingly without a single mention of the Chelsea Flower Show. Best of all was the V&A’s excellent expansion of the original @vitradesignmuseum show and lush coffee table book to include a focus on ‘Garden Politics’ with particular emphasis on land justice in P4l est ine as well as lots of upfront anti-colonial interpretation. @corinne_silva ’s project documents the violent ways garden design by illegal settlers has been and is used to control and segregate. Together with objects relating to historical ‘Scottish complicity’ making Zionist garden cities in Tel Aviv, it seems that a little distance from empire in Scotland goes a long way to produce honest research about our colonial entanglements. The utterly moving Tatreez show curated by @racheldedman (with beautiful film portraits by @maevekrbrennan ) is also worth a trip in itself. Outrageously, despite pal cultural heritage being a target (the last dress pictured was salvaged from the bombing of the Rafa h museum) we won’t find shows like these in London institutions anytime soon. Thanks to James Wylie at V&A for taking the time to show me around and to @rhs #RHSbursaries for supporting my trip. Last pics from @cambo_gardens and charming Fife.

A few pics from the working weekend at Prospect Cottage which overwhelmed my senses and expectations of a house, a garden and what communing with others over a garden can create. The intense wind has only stopped swirling around my head, what a ride! Thanks to @j.bruce.garden @creativefstone and Derek Jarman (and Keith Collins) for sharing your very embodied cinematic vision with us. I brought a Bolex with me to make up for my lack so watch this space (or one nearby) for the results x

Land Body Minds meeting takes place tomorrow @bethnalgreen_naturereserve ✨🌳 We look forward to welcoming members of @landinournames , @earth.tenders and @miseryparty and everyone signed up to come together towards land/ racial/ health/ environmental justice. In the afternoon there will be a chance to reflect and record thoughts using creative writing prompts offered by the Body Minds study group. We’re also lucky to have chef Ketchurah from @ketchurahskitchen cook a warming meal for us over the reserve’s fire pit! Ketchurah is a a seasonal chef and researcher whose work focuses on communal eating. Ketchurah prefers catering and dining in third spaces, using seasonal and sometimes wild ingredients. With a passion for tackling food insecurity challenges and wanting a more sustainable food system. Come prepared for light rain in the afternoon, and the tube strike. If you can, bring your preferred materials to write with. Thanks again to all involved including @earth.tenders , @landinournames , @miseryparty , @designprintbind , Sonji Shah, @carmem___s , @tom_railton and to @bethnalgreen_naturereserve for hosting. ‘Land-Body-Minds Meeting’ is supported by Technē.

We’re really happy to be bringing together three key London-based grassroots 🌿 collectives in conversation - @earth.tenders @landinournames and @miseryparty - at beautiful Phytology @bethnalgreen_naturereserve for ‘Land Body Minds Meeting’ next month. The presence of these groups has been so critical locally, for a burgeoning community of QTIBPOC in London without easy access to land, to feel grounded and learn to grow together. Their organising work is making waves on a bigger scale still, contributing to worldwide, historical movements fighting towards racial justice, reparations and LAND BACK (as sadistic imperialist land grab and ecocide continues unabated), intersecting with struggles towards food and health sovereignty, indigenous rights, climate justice, crip justice, Black feminism, queer and trans liberation, class struggle, prison and border abolition. For me, these are truly decolonial gardens - marginal spaces in which to learn from plants and collectively grieve, as we simultaneously dismantle dominant narratives of exclusion and extraction, and rebuild with a stance of defiant, loving, mutuality. QR or link in bio for more info and to reserve your place. *We are almost at capacity already but we will try and figure out a way to offer more tickets. Watch this space. ‘Land-Body-Minds Meeting’ is supported by @technedtp . Thanks to @designprintbind , Sonji Shah, @carmem___s , @tom_railton and to @bethnalgreen_naturereserve for hosting.

Just now arriving home from the Place retreat set amongst vast corn fields and hazels in Ferrer Rocher country near Turin. As @anarchofermentation put it so succinctly, the retreat was organised by talented cis gay dancers turned gardeners, through the European Union. We travelled far together visiting historic gardens, community gardens, baby forests and wild gardens learning to slow down, repair connections and be a bit tribal again. Although it felt hard to ask for, I was grateful to bring my kin, and for us all to retreat from the big smoke for a week or so, it was much needed! In case you’re curious, the first video is of @maxwellmcc_rthy of Punctures helping balance the amount of Goldenrod by preventing it from going to seed. The pic of Jamaica Kincaid @virtuouspomona is from a book! Mille grazie @tormodcarlsen for bringing along so much of her inspired writing. The intensive programme brought surprises, lessons and budding collaborations going forward, hopefully restoring the .eu in borderless Flatness.

Solidarity is a verb. A video of gardener @colindavidstewart taking time before his talk @hornimanmuseumgardens plant fair on Saturday to read a statement written by @fungi.futures Maymana Arefin who withdrew her participation in the event in response to the censorship of an artist in residence at the Horniman who had wanted to make work about Palestine. Talking back to institutions is exhausting and distracts us from our work. And while Maymana’s contribution to the programme was sorely missed, institutional silence and censorship during a live-streamed genocide and the expanding warscape in Gaza and now Tehran is harmful and cannot be condoned or greenwashed. Free Palestine. Please excuse the dodgy captions!

Coming up! ‘Grow Where You’re Planted’, a social and environmental justice gardening festival on 28 June organised by @globalgeneration and @britishlibrary . Artist gem Joseph Walsh will be interviewing me about my practice and PhD research into liberatory gardening (queer, anti-colonial, slow…), and we will be sharing stories of our journeys into growing. Third image is by Joseph 🌼 It looks set to be a full and rich event at the Story Garden, with food and family friendly programming. Link to book free tickets in bio 🌿🐜🫛

Much appreciation to @_____joewalsh__ and Rosalind Fowler for hosting the Plant Connection Retreat in Joe’s magically tended wild garden on the edge of north London this weekend. It was a much needed slow opportunity to sink into plant time and collectively learn from their ancient wisdoms. Through drawing, tasting and asking we made and held onto a space to refresh intentions for our practices. Thanks too to rose, it’s your blooming month 🌹!!

My shift has finished but the build on @nigel.dunnett ’s garden for @the_rhs Chelsea Flower Show @hospitalfield @project.giving.back is non-stop for the next week. This is triple the speed it takes to build a regular garden, and probably 100 times faster than it would ideally take. But despite the huge cost and the insane pursuit of perfection demanded by the competition judges, I actually had a great time being part of the team and learnt so much: it was the first time I felt part of a trade arriving with the skills needed to contribute to this special undulating garden. (I’ve got more thoughts on why it works so well, not just for the show, but I’ll save them for after the opening.) Under the loving wing of @plantyjane (and her sharp eye for placing plants) I delved my hands into the cool sand and helped to fill the garden with hundreds of plants evoking a desert landscape in the heart of Chelsea. West London pollinators were already going mad over them, so I hope most will make it up safely to the garden’s final destination in Arbroath to flourish in a mini oasis there. Thanks to Nigel for being super zen and fielding all my many questions about his practice and the context of this strange but oh so compelling event. Last pic by @nigel.dunnett , penultimate pic some blooms that didn’t make the cut but survived the bus journey home.

Our reflections from our session ‘Where Liberatory Gardens and Farming Meet’ @oxfordrealfarmingconference are available to read through on Flatness and @earth.tenders website, link in bio. Thanks to everyone who joined us and we look forward to more opportunities to gather and dream together 🌱

Come and join us for a chat about gardening for connection, community and liberation. We’d love to see you there. We’ll be one of the talks taking place at the Garden Museum Spring Plant Fair on Sunday 13th April. Cost of a ticket also gets you entry into the fair. _ “If our existing way of seeing the world is one that seeks to divide and separate, could gardening help to reconnect us? How, with greater awareness, might gardening help to heal some of our wounds, narratives and disconnection. And perhaps point us towards different ways of seeing and being in this world. Can our gardens be a site in which we become kin with the world around us and where we might practice a liberatory way of being? Join us as we discuss how gardening might help to connect us to a sense of place, to ourselves, to each other and to our more-than-human kin.” _ Talk: Becoming Kin Date: 13th April 2025 Time: 11:45am - 12:30pm Place: Garden Museum, London Tickets: £10 (entry to Spring Plant Fair included with cost of talk ticket) via @gardenmuseum Speakers: Sui Searle & Shama Khanna