Claire Ratinon

Unearthed is the story of how Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants and reconnecting with nature. Like many diasporic people of colour, Ratinon grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors, and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent.

Through learning the practice of growing food, she unpicked her beliefs about who she ought to be. Over her first year show more living in the English countryside and with the first vegetable patch of her own, she found a pathway back to nature's embrace. And through growing the food of Mauritius, recording her parents' stories and exploring the history of the island, she also strengthened her connection to her homeland. show less

Horticultural Appropriation is a conversation between an organic food grower and an artist about the possibility and necessity of bringing a decolonial lens to the practice of horticulture. Taking place within West Dean Art College and Gardens, the exchange explores how attempts to decolonise collections and spaces currently happening in arts and cultural institutions might inform the interrogation of the colonial history at the heart of Britain’s gardens and gardening.