Downing Fellow hosts talk for Cambridge Festival
On Monday 25 March, Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Fellow in English) hosted an event in Downing as part of the Cambridge Festival.
With Kasia Boddy (Fellow in English, Fitzwilliam College), Dr Lander Johnson spoke to over fifty members of the public about the history of sanctuary gardens in England: from medieval monastic ‘paradise gardens’ to WW2 civic gardens offering food and respite and 21st century refugee gardens.
Psychiatrist and horticulturalist, Sue Stuart-Smith read from her 2020 The Well-Gardened Mind about the importance of green spaces and gardening for the modern mind. Participants were then given a tour of Jack Sharp’s Downing Wellbeing Garden to consider the role of sanctuary in the context of contemporary educational institutions. The day ended with a visit to The Heong Gallery’s current exhibition You Are Not You and Home is Not Home by Issam Kourbaj.
Dr Lander Johnson said: "Throughout history, sanctuary gardens have been understood in different ways, but always there existed a tension around who had access to them: were sanctuary gardens available to all or a select few? Were they a sign of luxury or a legitimate place of consolation in distress? I so enjoyed exploring these questions at Downing and the participants were very engaged. Many of them were experienced gardeners curious about the history of digging and they loved Jack’s Wellbeing Garden."
Published 26 March 2024