What Grows Wild
What Grows Wild
The Mosaic Rooms are sharing space with adult groups from The Dalgarno Trust, in partnership with Community Herbalist Rasheeqa Ahmad. The adults taking part in the project are from St. Antonio’s Ladies’ Group, the Volunteering in Partnership (VIP) Group, and the Healthworks Group at The Dalgarno Trust. The initial sessions took place at The Mosaic Rooms, and at Chelsea Physic Garden. during summer 2022.
Using local herbs and plants as a starting point, the groups have been exploring ideas of shared knowledge, health related herbalism, and ways of taking that knowledge home.
In Autumn, the groups will meet again to reflect on the change of season, and celebrate a zine produced from the summer workshops.
About Rasheeqa Ahmad
Rasheeqa (Hedge Herbs) is a herbalist in her community in Walthamstow in north London. She has been practicing since 2012, offering treatment with herbal medicine and teaching about its many aspects, alongside a wider mix of work whose aim is connecting us as communities with the potential of this knowledge and craft as a way to develop healthier living systems and relationships. She has contributed writing to artist publications around these themes and has presented talks around the histories and politics of plant medicine and healthcare.
Rasheeqa is inspired by her early involvement with the Radical Herbalism Gathering in exploring how to make plant medicine accessible and restore balance to its practice in the contexts of systemic inequalities and oppressions that are part of our shared histories. She comes from a family lineage of herbal medicine practitioners in Unani Tibb, who continue to practice this in northern India.
She is an instigator of the Community Apothecary in her locality, a project that brings community members together around a patchwork of medicinal herb gardens where we can learn about growing, wildcrafting and making medicines together, which are then available to the community. The vision is to co-create thriving mutually supportive healthcare systems, sharing knowledge, peer support and the model so that we can create landscapes of healing everywhere.
About The Dalgarno Trust and Chelsea Physic Garden
The Dalgarno Trust
Improving lives in north Kensington
The Dalgarno Trust community centre is a safe space for their local community to meet, build friendships and form a strong and supportive social network. It bring individuals of all ages from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds together so that they can fulfil their potential and break the cycle of poverty, ill-health and deprivation.
Dalgarno Trust are delighted to be working with the Mosaic Rooms in this gardening project to improve health and well being with the local community.
Chelsea Physic Garden
Sitting on the Thames Embankment, and sheltered by high walls, Chelsea Physic Garden is one of the oldest and most respected botanic gardens in Europe. It is the oldest in London, and only surpassed in age, in England, by Oxford Botanic Garden. You can find out more about Chelsea Physic Garden here.
