How can socially engaged photography benefit community gardening?

In 2023-2024, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and the Socially Engaged Photography network partners (Open Eye Gallery and Street Level Photoworks) carried out a socially engaged photography residency programme within local gardening initiatives supported by the RHS. The pilot programme aimed to test out the impact of bringing a socially engaged photographer to work in residence with a local gardening group. 

Capturing the stories behind the growing initiatives

We invited photographers to work collaboratively with local community gardening groups to capture the stories behind the growing initiatives. The idea behind photographic work created was led just as much by the group as by the photographer. We hoped that this approach of working with a photographer will make people more confident to share their personal gardening and growing stories with each other and with the wider public, improve their confidence and photography skills, and represent seasons of the gardening year.

The local community gardening groups selected for the programme were Cranhill Community development trust group (Glasgow), Q Gardens, The Strand and Pretus Pier (Rochdale). The programme included two bespoke socially engaged photographic residency programmes in Rochdale (with photographer Gwen Riley Jones) and Glasgow (with CT productions), training sessions for RHS staff, and creating online artworks, photographic toolkits and resource packs to support the community gardeners to document their gardening experiences.

Whilst the Rochdale programme focused on visual literacy and photo-elicitation techniques to reflect upon images made, the Glasgow programme with Street Level Photoworks weaved in a series of hands-on technical photography workshops. They ran an alternative photographic process (cyanotype) workshop and invited the community to visit Street Level Photoworks gallery and see their space and darkroom facilities. 

Exhibitions and feedback

Open Eye Gallery exhibited the work created during our biennial LOOK Climate Lab programme within the gallery in January – March 2024, whereas Street Level Photoworks exhibited the work back within the community at Cranhill Community development trust as part of a one day celebration event. Late into 2024, Open Eye Gallery hosted a cultural event as part of the 2024 Labour party conference, displaying an overview of our socially engaged programme (including this pilot project) on the exterior walls, and so the programme was showcased again to the public and high profile cultural and government figures. 

Audiences engaging with the work at Open Eye Gallery’s exhibition programme shared their feedback: 

• ‘It was an amazing exhibition, I have an allotment and I particularly loved the stuff on food growing, made me think about my own growing more’
• ‘It was lovely to see an exhibition which focuses on the environmental issues from humanity’s perspectives, everything felt raw and real’. 
• ‘I particularly enjoyed watching the Glasgow community garden film, to hear from people directly about their local growing schemes and how important it is to them’. 

Rochdale participant Javena stated: ‘The small things matter. Small things that come together to make a big, beautiful picture. I didn’t pay attention to the flowers but seeing how beautiful each is now, I think I would like to take some time to admire nature more’. 

The participants shared that this way of working created much more freedom on how to visualise their story: ‘the cook book idea was something we’d always wanted to do, so it was fantastic to be able to use this opportunity to work collaboratively with a photographer and designer to finally make it happen, and the look the best it could’. 

Benefits of socially engaged approach

The socially engaged approach was a particularly accessible and powerful way for the participants to share their experiences of the community. The photographic outputs worked both as a physical artwork and as a visual literacy tool for sharing people’s relationship to community gardening. 

We hope to support the photographers to continue to engage with other community gardens in the future, and we are looking forward to continuing our work on future projects with RHS in the coming years. 

Image by Gwen Riley Jones