0

Your Basket

Your Basket is Empty

Search

stories - issue #5

Becoming pond

Words by Sol Polo
Photography by Thomas Broadhead

The pond is a microcosm of a bigger ecosystem, reminding us that the water that constitutes us inextricably connects us to the whole of the natural world.

We rarely ask ourselves where our bodily waters come from, and where they go, perhaps because, if we dared, our comfortable categories for what is human and what is a body might crumble.

It was in the summer that I found myself visiting OmVed Gardens, in north London, UK. Positioned on a gently descending slope, the once-derelict tarmacked land has blossomed into a nourishing urban oasis - proving the theory that we can restore nature, and that nature, in turn, can restore us. One of OmVed’s latest developments was the addition of a large pond. Situated in the lowest part of the gardens, so that it can gather excess rainwater from OmVed’s greenhouse and the rest of the gardens, it quickly began to fill with the summer storms. It was the beginning of July and just as the UK was about to emerge from the first wave of the pandemic, the pond was also emerging from the ground with a promise of restoration.

You can continue reading this, alongside all of the content from back issues, by becoming a digital subscriber.

FIND OUT MORE

Choose Your Own Leaf, Explore Related Pieces...

View All

Interview

Remedios: Where new land might grow

Interview by Madeleine Bazil with Daniela Zyman

feature - Issue #14

From the Earthworm to the Economy

Words and photography by Ella Brolly

Feature - Issue #14

In Our Bones

Introduction and insights by Francy Fontes Baniwa (Hipamaalhe) Narration by Francisco Luiz Fontes (Matsaape). Illustrations by Frank Fontes (Hipattairi). Translation by Le Guimarães

diALOGUE - ISSUE #14

First Shade

Words by Margo Farnsworth. Illustration by Shimeng Jiang.

DiALOGUE - ISSUE #14

The Necklace and the Pea

Words by L. Sasha Gora. Illustration by Sinae Park

DiALOGUE - ISSUE #14

Shaped by Nature

Words and Photograph by Meg Rodger

Feature - Issue #14

The Gut Soil Connection

Words by Rachel de Thample

Feature - Issue #14

We did not leave, we are here. We will return. It is our soil.

Words by Erkan Affan

Art - Issue #5

Feature - issue #5