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With Us All – Sufra and Sean Roy Parker

With Us All – Sufra and Sean Roy Parker

A glasshouse commissioned for a community garden in the heart of the St. Raphael estate, to help deepen people’s relationships with the space.

About the project

With Us All is a community commission to build a glasshouse in an edible garden. 

The community partner is Sufra Foodbank and Kitchen – a Brent-based charity who run the edible garden. It was established in 2013 to address the causes and consequences of impoverishment in the community. We have been working with them on the commission since the 2022 Brent Biennial.

With Us All timeline

With Us All began as part of the 2022 Brent Biennial. It developed slowly, using our community partnership framework. It is designed to understand the needs and desires of a community before moving forward to develop a brief and choose an artist.

Over six months workshops took place to develop a brief for a permanent artwork for St Raphael’s Edible Garden and select the artist to create it.

The sessions involved staff from the garden, volunteers and residents from St Raphael’s estate. The workshops were facilitated by A’lshah Waheed, with the curator of the 2022 Brent Biennial, Eliel Jones. Together the group chose artist Sean Roy Parker (known as Roy) to create the artwork. His proposal centred around creating a small structure in the garden to help deepen people’s relationships with the space.

Sean Roy Parker asked:
“What happens when we look closer? How does connecting with our (more-than) human neighbours affect our sense of place and self? Who speaks when we are silent? Can we look up when we feel down?”

From proposal to co-creation

Roy developed his proposal further in 2023, looking at potential sites within the garden and meeting the community to understand how they use the space.

Over the summer of 2023 open workshops were held to bring the local community into the design of the project.

Digging Up Words

Image shows an empty pottle on top of a bamboo pole in a flower bed, the bottle has writing on it in green pen which reads: musical, protection, seasonal
image shows 7 people entering a greenhouse in a garden, it is a sunny day
Image shows a brick in a flower bed surrounded by plants, the brick has blue writing on it that reads: you weigh this down so well, you wear these clothes so well.

On Saturday 26th August, the first workshop for With Us All took place at St Raph’s Edible Garden. The workshop session was led by writer Priya Jay.

During the workshop, Priya asked the attendees to look, listen and smell closely and carefully. They tuned in to different senses and scales, observing the growing plants, as well as what lies under them, around them and above them.

Priya encouraged everyone to write love letters to the plants and compost, give thanks to the tools, and write from the perspectives of animals and insects. The group wrote on found materials throughout the garden in chalk pen: scrap paper, plant labels, pots, seed trays and wheelbarrows. These fragments were left for others to encounter, or for the rain to wash away.

Tasting and Healing

Image shows workshop participants in the garden, in a circle around artist and writer Izzy Johns, who is holding a leaf and talking.
Image shows Izzy Johns making healing balms in a heated double boiler. Izzy and workshop participants are standing around a table, on the table are big blocks of shea butter, and jars and jugs.
Image shows someone's hands holding a leaf and small cherry tomatoes.

The second workshop, Tasting and Healing, was run by artist Izzy Johns. Participants took a tour of the garden, learning about the different healing benefits of the plants they encountered. Regrouping in the yurt, everyone shared memories related to plants and discussed their own experiences of using plants for healing.

Afterwards Izzy lead participants through making healing balms from ingredients that can be found in St. Raphael’s edible garden. The finished balms are kept in the glasshouse where anyone in need can use them.

Making and Building

The culmination of the workshop series was a 3 day workshop of building and making. A small group of participants, all local community members, were led by artists and makers Hannah-Lily Lanyon and Jack Narbed, learning woodwork and fabrication skills.

Each lunchtime hot meals were cooked by artist Sean Roy Parker using surplus donations and ingredients from the edible garden and shared by all in the garden.

The participants’ new woodworking skills were then put into practice in making furniture, including shelving, a desk and a bench – all made to measure specifically for the glasshouse.

Workshop participants later came to the glasshouse opening to see their creations in place, and to see their names that are now etched into wood of the glasshouse.

Building the Glasshouse

Running alongside the final workshop was the construction of the glasshouse itself. The glasshouse is made up almost entirely from recycled sash windows which were assembled according to designs by Sean Roy Parker. The fabrication of the glasshouse was led by Chris Prempeh with assistance from Sean Roy Parker, project curator Christy O’Beirne and apprentice Om Majithia. It took the team 10 days to construct the glasshouse structure in the grounds of St. Raphael’s Edible Garden.

A group of 6 pose in a garden with a large sign that reads "With Us All"
Chris Prempeh and apprentice Om Majithia working on construction of the glasshouse

Unveiling

On the 4th of November 2023 the glasshouse was unveiled to the public as part of a community celebration at St. Raphael’s edible garden. There was music from Goblin band, speeches by Sean Roy Parker and local community leaders, and hot food and drinks. It was a wonderful experience to see so many from the local area come together to witness the opening of this new community resource in the edible garden.

Accessibility consultation and support for this opening event was provided by Quiplash.

A shelf of instruments for looking - binoculars, magnifying glasses, loupes
Visitors explore the glasshouse, viewed through one of the wooden windows. They are picking up herbal teas and taking photos
Glasshouse interior - it is light and bright, open in the middle with bits of handmade furniture like a bench and shelving along the sides. It is all natural wood and feels warm and welcoming
Glasshouse from the outside with a sign saying With Us All
Artist Roy stands smiling in front of the glasshouse. He is a white man with long wavy brown hair and a beard. He has a cup of tea and is wrapped up warm in a coat, scarf and hat.
A young boy stands inside the glasshouse, looking out through a pair of binoculars
A glasshouse made from white wooden windows and doors, with a waterbutt next to the entrance
A wooden block carved to look like a book with a prompt for exploring the garden written on it. The prompt says 'Draw a self portrait and feed it to the compost pile'

Below you can listen to the audiocassette created by the With Us All team that tells the story of the glasshouse’s creation and gives prompts for creative exploration. This cassette lives inside the glasshouse and is ready to be played by visitors, adding a soundtrack to the space.

About the artist

Sean Roy Parker is a writer, cook, gardener and visual artist based at Michael House co-living project in Shipley, Derbyshire. He practises slow, low-tech crafts and landwork. He uses leftover consumer debris and natural abundances. Roy is a self-taught fermentation enthusiast and soil builder. He redistributes matter through labour exchange, favours, artswaps, community meals and teaching.

In his ongoing project Fermental Health he writes and leads workshops on the lifecycle of materials, complexities of interspecies responsibility, and problem-solving through collaborative action.

fermentalhealth.substack.com