Seed Bed 2023-24
Riverside Walk and Collective Field Notebook
Seed Bed funded part of the Natural History Consortium’s Festival of Nature programme for 2023 – a dreamy, immersive riverside walk celebrating the nature of the River Frome in mid-June, and creating a collective notebook.
During the session, the group – led by Davina Quinilivan, Dee Moxon and Tadorna Tours – created paintings, sketches and words to later be compiled into a beautiful Collective Field Notebook.
As well as a vivid record of the walk and the environment of the Frome Valley, the Collective Field Notebook is intended as a great resource to help people elsewhere to reflect on the nature around them. It’s available to view and download here.
‘Educational, accessible, calming, informative and inspiring.’
‘I feel inspired to create again.’
Messages of Hope
Participants in Messages of Hope – A Writing Workshop on Healing the Natural World and Enabling Biodiversity (part of the South Hams Literary Festival programme) were encouraged to discuss their hopes for the natural world and humans through the creative arts, The discussion explored how we may live in harmony with nature, now, and in the future.
‘Our activity delivered an excellent, high-quality experience of literature which highlighted…the climate and environmental crisis.’
Dementia Friendly Hampshire – Outside – The Box
Dementia Friendly Hampshire, in partnership with Creative Connections Poetry & Reminiscence, produced several sessions inspired by nature poems. Participants took short walks in nature and share memories and experiences before creating poems, which will now be displayed in local libraries and form part of an ‘Outside – the box’ resource made available to groups and care homes.
‘Dementia Friendly Hampshire aims to support people living with dementia to live a good life, with opportunities to participate in and contribute to their communities and be valued for who they are. We are grateful for this funding to support the ‘Outside the box’ project, run in partnership with Creative Connections Poetry and Reminiscence, which aims to help more local people with dementia and their carers to connect and engage with nature and explore their own creative expression through poetry.’
Women’s Community Forum – Our Wonderful World
The Women’s Community Forum promotes community cohesion and opening up new dialogues between women and girls of different backgrounds and ages. In summer 2024, supported by Seed Bed and other partners, they will hold Our Wonderful World, an event at North Petherton, Sedgemoor comprising 3 creative writing workshops, each focused on a different environmental theme.
Two of the topics are celebratory and examine the wonders of our planet – Capturing Trees and Nature’s Whisperings. One of the topics will raise awareness of the environmental challenges we face locally and globally with an emphasis on how these impact of women in the global south.
Come back later in 2024 for news and photos from this activity supported by Seed Bed.
Looe Festival Of Words: Poetry on the Rocks
For October 2024’s Looe Festival of Words, the festival partnered with Looe Marine Conservation Group to organise Poetry On The Rocks – a family-friendly exploration of the beautiful rocky shore and its creatures at Hannafore, West Looe, followed by a poetry workshop.
Photos by Chris at Photonaut
‘‘A blustery hour was spent finding our rocky shore muses – a consortium of crabs was collected as well as starfish, prawns, multicoloured snails, shells and seaweeds. Participants then composed and recited a selection of short rocky shore poems – very engaged, a lovely event.’’
‘Poetry on the Rocks was a delightful event bringing a new dimension to appreciation of the incredible creatures found in the rock pools. Participants were really inspired to reach deep into their creative minds with wonderful poetry as the outcome. We’d love to collaborate on future events of this kind.’
