Roseland in Roydon used a mobile Garden Shed in the village of Roydon in Epping Forest on the outskirts of London as part of Common or Garden, a project organised by Epping Forest Arts. The project explored the relationship between garden sheds and village greens. It culminated in a Plant Exchange on the Roydon Village Green on 17th and l8th June 2006. We were also grateful to be able to be included in the Roydon Village 'Open Gardens' on the Sunday, l8th June.
The other artists who took part in Common or Garden included Sofie Layton (Lead Artist), Anne Eggebert, Mark Storor, Carl Stevenson and Emily Jost. We all presented our sheds at Theydon Bois Common on 8th and 9th July, and we organised another Roseland Plant Exchange for this occasion.
In this work the Garden Shed acted as a centre for exchange. The process of exchange underpinnned the work and took a number of forms. People exchanged plants and seeds. In the process of exchange participants also chatted and exchanged information, skills, knowledge, memories and ideas.
At Roydon Primary School I worked with one class (P5), the Gardening Club and some parents in the village school over a period of four months. Fundamental to this work was the idea that the shed itself would be transformed so that it was mobile. The Garden Shed, as well as the ideas and experiences it generated, would able to be moved from one place to another.
The Shed was customised with four wheels, and I, together with pupils, parents and teachers, followed the Shed from the school to the Village Green for the Plant Exchange as members of the Epping Forest Arts team, led by Simon Marshall, valiantly wheeled it and manoeuvred it to its place on the Village Green.
The pupils worked with me to paint the Shed pink, inside and out, decorate it and make it ready to be returned to their school garden. They came up with thirty seven ideas for Roseland in Roydon. Thus the Shed was fitted with a weather vane, flower planters and bird feeders as well as an Astro-turf floor, pink-carpeted benches and a storage chest for their garden tools. The benches were covered in the actual pink “Roseland Carpet” I used to carpet the Bonhoga Gallery.
The school Gardening Club also grew plants from seed I provided, which were used as the foundation for the Plant Exchange in the Village Green. ‘Tickets’ for the exchange, much like raffle tickets, were designed by pupils working with me and also acted as a memento or souvenir of the experience.