#THENATUREKIND
Claire Ratinon is an organic food grower and writer based in East Sussex. She has worked in a range of roles from growing produce for the Ottolenghi restaurant, Rovi to delivering growing workshops and talks to audiences including East London primary schools, community centres and educational institutions. Claire is passionate about the act of growing plants - especially edible ones - and the potential for it to be nourishing, connecting and healing. Her second book Unearthed: On Race and Roots, and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong was released in June 2022. Portraits by Christian Cassiel / @christiancassiel
Describe the nature around you at the moment.
Although I’m sitting at my desk, I can see my garden from the window next to me and my veg patch beyond it, and beyond that a large field peppered with ancient trees. It is especially beautiful on crisp winter days like today.
Where do you feel most at ease?
Walking at low tide on a bright, clear day. I only discovered this remarkable pocket of time and space a couple of years ago when I moved out of London and towards the south coast. I’ve been captivated by its ever-changing, shifting nature since.
What would you like audiences to take away from your book Unearthed?
Principally, I’d love for readers to come away from reading Unearthed with a sense that cultivating a relationship with the living world is not only possible but powerful and necessary. Through telling my own story of sowing seeds where my heart ached with unbelonging, and how the plants I grew in that space weaved me back together, I hope that other people might consider turning towards the earth to come to understand that they - that we all - belong to the living world, and to each other.
I hope, too, that readers come away from reading Unearthed with the belief that working with the soil and growing plants is humble, meaningful and political all at once. That seeds are the carriers of our heritage and our futures, that our histories are intertwined with those of the plants we grow and that we are all the descendants of land stewards and food growers so it deeply matters that we all have access to the opportunity to grow should we want it.
What lessons have you learned from nature?
I’ve learnt so much from the natural world that my answer to this question could fill another book! More than anything, it has taught me that our connection, our interdependence - with each other, with all living things - is infinite, unquestionable and sacred. Nurturing the soil, growing plants, making compost are all prisms through which I can see how exquisitely living systems co-operate and conspire in our collective thriving. Knowing this compels me to consider the impact of my actions and choices, and to try and be of service to the earth whenever I can.
Which song, book or poem nurtured your relationship with nature?
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver was the first text that I’d encountered that depicted the edible growing season as a narrative and in it, Kingsolver tells the story of the year when herself and her family attempted to live off the land, almost entirely, bar a handful of luxury items. It’s a book that combines compelling storytelling, interrogation of our food systems and regular acknowledgment of the challenges and hard graft that goes into growing food which necessarily explodes romanticised notions of self-sufficiency. It’s been many years since I last read it though - I wonder if I’d enjoy it as much now.
Which rituals do you practice to keep you grounded and connected to the outer world?
Observing. I always encourage new growers to keep a growing diary - noting the weather, sowing dates, germination times, first harvests. Not only is it a genuinely useful thing to do but it encourages you to take your time to bear witness to how things grow, behave and change. It offers up a sense of the story of the unfolding growing season. And since a grower’s to-do list is never complete, it can be hard to resist the compulsion to dive straight into the doing so making a ritual of looking, I think, is essential.
What are you interested in at the moment?
I ran a series of BPOC landworker retreats last year and that experience has left me reflecting on the need that so many of us have in this space to do work that is sustaining and feels purposeful while also accessing the kind of rest and recovery we need to make it to the following season. How can making time and space for recuperation and reflection become an ordinary part of the work that we do?
And as we move into the colder months, I’m attempting to take my cue from the seasons and accept the invitation to quieten down for the winter, to reflect on this enormous question and honour all that I have done with this year.
What do you think is the most impactful thing we, as individuals can do to help save the planet? (Question from #TheNatureKind interview with Judith Alter)
Grow something! There are few things that we can do as human beings that genuinely give more than they take but growing a plant is one of them. In this time of incessant extraction and consumption, growing plants is something we can do that feels unequivocally generative and is an act imbued with care, reciprocity and delicious beauty.
What question would you like to ask to the next person on #TNK?
Describe your vision of the future you hope for.
And could you suggest someone else or other organisations you admire that we could approach for #TheNatureKind
Samson Hart at Miknaf Haaretz and Becky MacKay at Ragman’s Lane Market Garden
You can find out more about Claire Ratinon on Instagram
Louis VI isn't one to sit on the sidelines, he aims to help give BIPOC communities a voice on climate justice. On his second album EARTHLING, the London rapper and climate activist is directly challenging the colonial legacy of climate change. Travelling to the Amazon gathering field recordings, giving speeches at COP26 and making award-winning shorts, his album condenses these experiences around his own Dominican heritage. EARTHLING is packed with nature-fuelled field recordings from Amazon storms, to UK forests and tropical birds on Mexican coasts. It’s also stacked full of features from the friends and musicians that surround Louis - including Lex Amor, Oscar Jerome, Moses Boyd, Bluestaeb, Alex Cosmo Blake and Mick Jenkins.
Photo credits: Carlos Martí @carlosmart1 and Dylan James Moore
Naomi researches how dynamic cultures interact with food and farming practices through migration. She is the author of the recently released report on racial justice in farming in the UK, Jumping Fences, a collaboration between Land In Our Names, Ecological Land Cooperative and Landworkers’ Alliance, funded by Farming the Future. The report presents the experiences of Black and POC farmers and growers in Britain.
She is also a gardener, ecologist, singer and educator.
The 'Jumping Fences' Report: Land, Food and Racial Justice in Britain
Rooting en route: how migration can fix a broken food system
Tej is the assistant food grower and The Seed Saving Network coordinator at OmVed Gardens, a gardener, scholar and interdisciplinary artist. His thinking weaves together various strands, including growing and being in 'nature' as an act of centring wellbeing; the power of social movements in our present time of several overlapping climate and social crises and ways of being and bearing witness to a world fundamentally changed by anthropogenic climate change. In the pre-pandemic world, Tej pursued formal training in Dramaturgy at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, while there were parts of that world he enjoyed, he never felt at peace. The pandemic, like for countless others, forced him to pause and rethink, leading him to refind gardening and growing.
Rosanna Morris' linocut and woodcut illustrations are traditional yet contemporary, delicately floral and yet full of the power and strength of revolution. She studied illustration in London and works from her studio in the southwest of England. When not drawing or creating prints you can find her working her allotment or tending to her three wild children. The illustrations below were created for the Landworker’s Alliance On Common Ground Calendar 2023.
Judith Alder is a British visual artist with a multi-faceted practice, working across a range of media and processes informed by science. Her work is directed by her premise on the process of evolution in the 21st century; that scientists can create and manipulate biological life, technologists are creating artificial life, inanimate objects often appear to take on a life of their own, and some things seem to be neither dead nor alive.
She has exhibited in The Freud Museum, London and Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne and was shortlisted for The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2012. In 2015 she was nominated for The Drawing Room Bursary Award. Her solo Vital Signs, curated by Sanna Moore, will be held at The Royal Society of Birmingham Artists Gallery from 14 to 25 February 2023 and has been funded by Arts Council, England.
Sui Searle (she/her) is a gardener, writer and printmaker. She has worked in botanic, public, private and community gardens as well as having spent a short period writing for gardening magazines. She is the founder of @decolonisethegarden which focuses on bringing a decolonial lens and anti-racism perspective to horticulture and is editor of the online gardening newsletter, Radicle.
Talia Woodin is a youth activist, photographer and filmmaker based in the UK. She’s spent the past four years organising with various campaigns within the climate and environmental movement, including spending a year living on and documenting the frontline environmental defence campaign against HS2 (a destructive high-speed rail infrastructure project). She has recently re-released her debut short documentary COP-out, exploring the youth climate justice movement's participation with COP and is currently organising with The Resistance Exhibition.
Love Ssega is a musician and artist. He is currently Artist in Residence for Philharmonia Orchestra and his work as the original frontman and founding songwriter for Clean Bandit landed in the UK charts and has also been performed globally. The multi-arts 2021 commission ‘Airs of the South Circular’, highlights the impact of air on the Black community in South London, and reached 100,000 of his local London Borough of Lewisham’s 300,000 residents.
His Live + Breathe campaign in saw Love Ssega collaborate with local community groups in Southwark and Lambeth and record a new piece ‘Capes For Blue Skies’ with the Philharmonia Orchestra. As a result of his work and advocacy, he was invited to speak at United Nations COP26 in Glasgow. Love Ssega is currently a Trustee of Shadwell Opera, Brian Eno-led music climate initiative EarthPercent and was also awarded the Arts Foundation Music For Change Fellowship in 2022. (Photo credits: Ben Millar Cole and Sophie Harbinson)
Born and raised in France, Alice is an artist and Modern Languages postgraduate student at the University of Oxford. Alice started sharing her drawings after being diagnosed with autism and ADHD, she aims to break stereotypes about gender, age, and race that surround autism and cause a lot of misunderstanding. She is the founder and president of the UCL autism society and has been involved in numerous talks and campaigns about neurodiversity, autistic women and mental health.
Talia Chain founded Sadeh, the UK's Jewish farm and land-based community in 2017. As the director, Talia's role includes working on the land, teaching on Sadeh Farm's fellowship programme, running education and volunteer sessions and fundraising for Sadeh's environmental and educational projects. She is currently raising £100,000 for Sadeh Farm to increase access to nature for all.
David Reeve is the co-editor and co-founder of Where the Leaves Fall magazine and a filmmaker with various music videos and films, including Y/our Music and Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith, under his belt.
Ruth Andrade from Lush's Regenerative Impact team, has a masters in Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies. She is a trustee and co-founder of Re.Alliance, a collective of practitioners bringing regenerative design to the humanitarian and development sectors; and a co-creator of Regenerosity, an initiative with a mission to flow resources, enable learning and share stories to grow the regenerative movement in partnership with funders and grassroots initiatives. Originally from Brazil, Ruth grew up in a concrete jungle, witnessing first-hand the destruction of the natural environment which prompted an early interest in environmental issues and fuelled a great passion for driving change.
Dr Delfina Fantini van Ditmar is a biologist, design researcher and Senior Lecturer at the Royal College of Art. Her practice is concerned with ecological thinking, reflective practices, epistemological paradigms and alternative futures. Delfina has been a visiting lecturer in several institutions, including The Bartlett, Architectural Association, Manchester School of Art, University of Brighton and the University for the Creative Arts among others. As a part of the Design Museum and Future Observatory's Design Researchers in Residence Programme, Delfina is responding to environmental collapse from a systemic perspective with research examining dematerialisation. Portrait by Pierre Bailly and exhibition photographs by Felix Speller.
Samuel Iliffe is a design engineer focused on the use of innovative materials and processes to address everyday problems. As a part of the Future Observatory Design Researchers in Residence programme hosted by the Design Museum, Samuel is exploring the issue of water pollution and eutrophication in the UK, with a focus on the role that algae play. Photographs courtesy The Design Museum.
Niellah Arboine is a writer, editor and broadcaster born and raised in south London. She is an original member of gal-dem and the deputy editor at Where the Leaves Fall. Niellah has written for the likes of Vogue, Guardian, House & Garden, Vice and Time Out London. She has contributed to Daunt Books’ In the Garden: Essays on Nature and Growing, and was shortlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize 2021 for nature writing.
Will is a photographer, producer and director who works across several fields from music photography to commercial film production. He is a member of Forest Studio, a boutique creative studio based in east London. He enjoys long-distance running, improv comedy and owls.
Ellen is a public speaker, activist and guerrilla gardener who founded Nature is a Human Right, the campaign to make access to green space a universal right. She also edited the book Nature is a Human Right: Why We're Fighting For Green in a Grey World (DK 2022) and founded Dream Green, the social enterprise that empowers people to become guerrilla gardeners.
Susanna Grant is a planting designer who specialises in plants for shady spaces. She runs Linda, a dappled courtyard space in London’s Hackney that sells shade-loving plants for sills, balconies, courtyards and gardens. She has also written the Bloom Gardener's Guide - Shade - Work with the light, grow the right plants, bring dark corners to life. Portrait by Aloha Bonser Shaw.
Darren Appiagyei is a woodturner based in London, UK. He graduated from UAL Camberwell College of The Arts where he studied 3D design. His practice is about embracing the intrinsic beauty of wood, be it knot, bark or grain. Photos by Will Hearle and Thomas Broadhead.
Tijana Lukovic is a Belgium based illustrator whose artworks contain traces of folklore, mythology and a love for nature. Her images are rooted in the changing seasons and her inner world as she explores the forest of her childhood memories.
Jini Reddy is a writer and journalist, and is the author of Wanderland which was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Award for Travel Book of the Year, and for the Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing. She’s also contributed to the landmark anthology Women on Nature, and before that, Winter. As a journalist and travel writer, Jini has written for publications including The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, the Independent, TIME magazine, National Geographic Traveller, Resurgence and the Ecologist, and in 2019 was named one of National Geographic’s Women of Impact.
Jini has also written several texts for Where the Leaves Fall - her writing occupying a cross-genre space where place, spirituality, nature and culture meet.
Alice Vincent started to share her journey into gardening in 2014 with Noughticulture and has since written the books How to Grow Stuff: Easy, No-Stress Gardening for Beginners (2017) and Rootbound: Rewilding a Life (2020), and written and read the audio guide Seeds from Scratch (2020).
Photographs by Camilla Jørvad, except the balcony and book cover images which are by Alice Vincent.
Zayaan Khan is an artist whose work finds a resting place through food as a means of understanding the world, particularly seed, land and our collective heritage. Her Instagram page notes that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" and she also runs the Seed Biblioteek - reconnecting seed with story, towards resilience and sovereignty. As she notes: "Seed is our land, heritage and future".
Will Burns was named as one of the Faber and Faber New Poets for 2014. His first full collection, Country Music, was published in 2020, and his debut novel, The Paper Lantern, was published in July 2021. He was named as one of The Observer’s Top 10 Debut Novelists of 2021 and is the OmVed Gardens poet in residence.
Amelia Rouse is from Barbados. While she studied civil engineering, her first love is illustration and she produces beautiful work in pen and ink with an emphasis on nature. She’s been illustrating for Where the Leaves Fall since issue #3.
Jo March is the Head of the Creative and No Waste Kitchen at Omved Gardens. Growing up in a farming family, passionate about cooking, gardening and regenerative food growing, Jo has later rediscovered preservation and fermentation while trying to slow down and commit to a low waste lifestyle. From her favourite ingredient to experiment with at the moment, to what inspires her the most and her top three zero waste hacks in the kitchen, Jo has shared it all with us.
Vicky Chown is a medical herbalist, forager and gardener. She teaches permaculture and urban food growing in Queen’s Wood Community Garden and OmVed Gardens in London - where she also co-organises The Seed Saving Network - a biodiverse community of seed savers in London and across the United Kingdom.
Vicky also co-runs, alongside Kim Walker, The Handmade Apothecary, a foraging and herbal educational project. Together they have co-authored two books: The Handmade Apothecary and The Herbal Remedy Handbook.
Karen Leason is the director and founder of OmVed Gardens, a garden, exhibition space and sustainable food project in north London, which aims to re-establish the connection between the urban population, food and nature.
A partner of the UN World Food Programme and Chefs Manifesto, OmVed aims to educate and inspire conversations around sustainable food practices and ecological transformations. Committed to foster creativity and community-led change, OmVed Gardens plays host to an inspiring collective of artists, creatives, horticulturalists and chefs. Follow @omvedgardens to find out more and join their upcoming events.
