8 – 14 December
To accompany Depot’s screening of Human Flow, Ai Weiwei’s documentary on the global refugee crisis, Depot is to host a week-long exhibition demonstrating the benefits of urban agriculture and greening innovation to refugee communities in different parts of the world.
Under the title Growing Food, Growing Home, Growing Dignity, the exhibition focuses on recent work with Syrian communities living in the north of Iraq, Kurdistan region and is presented by local organisation Lemon Tree Trust. It will open with a small reception on Friday 8 December, 18:00 – 20:00.
The exhibition will include multi-media screenings and photographic images documenting Lemon Tree Trust’s work over the past three years. Through a small network of local employees they have planted trees, helped families and communities to plan and develop gardens and contributed to the start-up of refugee-led businesses. It will also include images of gardens started independently by Yizidi refugees which are now producing food and herbs in temporary camps and host communities. Gardens and meaningful work is not only important to food security, livelihoods, well-being and resilience, but it is hoped that establishing viable small businesses will help to facilitate a future transition home.
Lemon Tree Trust argues that what is often termed a ‘refugee crisis’ is leading to widespread ‘accidental’ urbanism as conflicts are protracted and temporary camps evolve into new towns and cities. The trust’s work evidences the importance of gardens, green spaces and food production at the heart of this process and it advocates for the inclusion of greening innovation in all crisis response planning.
Staff from the trust will be on hand in Depot’s Gallery to discuss their work on Friday evening, all day on Saturday and at times throughout the exhibition. The exhibition runs until Thursday 14 December, 20.00.