Re-Birth - Photography Workshop

Event Information

We often talk about the benefits of trees in facts and figures – carbon capture, heat island and flood mitigation, biodiversity. But our deepest connections with trees are rarely statistical. They’re emotional, personal, and rooted in story. It’s the tree where you had your first kiss or got engaged, the one at the end of your gran’s garden where you always sat to picnic on your summer visits, or the one you fell out of as a child. These moments, often forgotten or untold, are what make trees matter to people.

A participatory mobile photography workshop with the StAgs (St Ann's Green Spaces) and Chestnuts Park Community - A walk – starting and finishing in the same place. Followed by an online exhibition and opportunities to meet again.

In London, many communities have lost trees that were essential to their daily lives during the last few years. This is undoubtedly the case for residents and patients of the gardens of St Ann's Hospital, which were partly sold to private developers to save the hospital from bankruptcy.

I have been following their occupational therapy workshops in nature and the constant mediation to save green spaces, and I have previously worked with the community. After a short introduction and community exercises to interconnect, we will focus on the present day, immersing ourselves in the nature still in the area, expressing the participants' affection for our wise ancestors, the trees, in an immediate and easy way. 

After viewing and captioning the pictures, they will first end up on StAgs Instagram and website, and later on, we will meet again for a collective collage, in which old and new memories and memorabilia of those spaces will be mixed and layered together to come back to life. 

Contributors

Sabrina Merolla

Is a press and documentary photographer, participatory art facilitator and mixed media artist. Her work focuses on the multiple displacements and identities of the contemporary world from the perspective of human and nature rights. Every personal or community project aims to resonate with the lives and actions of invisible or stereotyped individuals and communities, raising questions on critical socio-political issues. She has published in the leading international media outlets, won awards and exhibited in China, Italy and the UK.

Insta: @sabrinamero

StAGS:

Launched in 2021, StAGS – a Friends of Green Spaces group, helping to care for the green spaces at St Ann's Hospital in the London borough of Haringey. They were constantly working with the local community, the hospital mental health patients, the Wild Life Trust and the Haringey Council to mediate with developers and protect most of St Ann's Hospital's exotic trees (some nearly 100 years old) and “the wild place”, home to the rich variety of wildlife travelling into Tottenham from the Lea Valley and Site of Importance to Nature Conservation from the latest building construction developments.

https://nhsforest.org/blog/nhs-forest-photo-competition-results/

Location of event

Location: St Ann's Hospital Entrance, St Ann's Rd, London N15 3TH & Online exhibition.

Nearest tube Station: Seven Sisters (Victoria Line)

For more information about this event contact: smerollaphoto@gmail.com