Resource authors: Michelle BastianProject: Memories of ‘Mr Seel’s Garden’: Engaging with historic and future food systems in Liverpool
Eleanor Rees reads some of her poetry written as a response to the Memories of Mr. Seel’s Garden project which researched the history of local food production in Liverpool. With the current interest in growing food locally, including long waiting lists for allotments and many new community ‘Growers’ groups, we explored the history of local food in Liverpool to see what other surprises might be lurking around Liverpool. Dairies in Chinatown? Pig-farms on Mossley Hill? We wondered whether knowing more about where we used to get our food from might inspire other radical ideas about where we could grow our food in the future. Volunteer and academic researchers used a combination of research methodologies – oral history, archive research and site identification/ documentation – to build up a multi-layered picture of the changing nature of food systems in Liverpool. The data gathered from each of these activities is now available on a web page and also fed into a variety of creative projects. The main aim of the project was to explore how engaging local communities with the changing patterns of urban food production might contribute to current grassroots efforts within Liverpool to raise awareness around current food issues.
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