Memories of Mr Seels’ Garden
Performed at The Bluecoat in Liverpool on 27th January 2013
If you are in Liverpool walking along Seel Street you may come across this plaque on the wall just around the corner from Liverpool ONE’s Tesco Superstore. In the centre of this commercial centre it’s hard to imagine that it was once a green and pleasant space but this plaque reveals that the area around Hanover street, including the land the Tesco now sits on, used to be full of market gardens.
Memories of Mr Seel’s Garden was a collaboration between Transition Liverpool, Friends of Everton Park and the Friends of Sudley Estate, as well as academics from Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The main aim of the project was to explore how engaging local communities with the changing patterns of urban food production might contribute to current grassroots efforts within Liverpool to raise awareness around current food issues. The project team spent six months collecting examples of stories inspired by local food heritage, wondering if knowing more about where we used to get our food from might inspire other radical ideas about where we could grow our food in the future.
We were lucky enough to come on board for the final stage of the project to develop a performance sharing stories that were gathered as part of the project as part of a final celebration event that took place at The Bluecoat in Liverpool on the 27th January. We worked with local people to share and perform their own personal stories.