Roots and Rebels. A movement was born

Easter bank holiday weekend marked our first event of the year. “Roots and Rebels,” a collaboration between Snooze Fabric, Friends of Markfield Park and Wild City Studio. It was great timing as our good pal Abed at Markfield cafe was putting on an Easter egg hunt, and the Beam Engine next door were opening their doors for a steam day. So, we jumped on board and created an unusual combo that you might not usually put in the same sentence — street murals and potato planting!

Snooze Fabric worked with Gladesmore Community School to get kids to sketch over lettering with beautiful artistic expressions of the garden and local area. These were translated into full murals on the old walls at the entrance to the garden. This was about revitalising and lifting the space and bringing a new vibrancy.

Another wall became a place for everyone to become a part of the artwork. Big letters were taped across a wall and over the course of the day kids and parents took turns in using spray cans to layer it up with whatever they wanted to express. Flowers, trees, random swirls, colours on colours — a thick rainbow unfolded over the day.

Across the garden, we were prepping rows in the allotment beds with some lovely heritage type potatoes and the kids helped plant them up. It was a hot day and by the end of it the place was packed, people moving from the cafe and beam engine over to the garden — a lot not knowing the place even existed.

"The clean white of the letters shone through that magic background. It was beautiful."

Then came that moment, when all the tatties were planted, when we went back to that psychedelic wall and Wayne and Romany pulled off the masking tape to reveal the letters underneath. What a kick off to our planting season. We made new friends that day who are a new part of this garden's journey. Now the potato leaves are thick, while we plant up all of our annual veg, and wait for the harvest to come.