Forest Uprising

Sunday saw the closing event of Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture 2019. Forest Uprising transformed Leyton Cricket Ground (once used by Essex County Cricket Club) into a steel sound installation plantation, dense thickets of illuminated scaffold poles giving forth the voices of the people of the borough. An alloy People’s Forest.

East 17’s Tony Mortimer joined Waltham Forest Youth Choir in a rousing rendition of the boyband’s hit, Stay Another Day.

The Glasshouse

The Glasshouse was an odd beast, but bizarrely compelling. A greenhouse full of broad bean shoots staffed by bio-suited technicians studying the public as much as the plants. What I found peculiar was that it was a less dramatic version of a real underground urban farm in the tunnels beneath Clapham Common that I visited last year. A great way to introduce the next generation to the future of farming.

It was a fittingly dreamlike conclusion to Waltham Forest’s year as London Borough of Culture.

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Here’s a playlist of the walks I produced for Borough of Culture 2019