Ben Ewart Dean shares a 2024 spent creeping along narrow allotment paths, thinking of new ways to capture these radical spaces.
The year began with a flurry (or as close as I get to a flurry) of allotment-related creative activity.
In January, I spent a few days on a site in Cardiff, filming shots for a long-gestating short film exploring the concept of allotments as radical spaces. This project started in the depths of the pandemic, then by turns abandoned, restarted and re-abandoned. With the New Year came a renewed burst of enthusiasm and, as is so often the case, I forced myself to make a start on filming something, just to see where it went. Turns out it went all the way to a finished film.
Running parallel to this project was the process of sequencing a set of images I’d taken on eight Cardiff allotment sites over the course of 2023 into a self-published book, which I released in March. After creating a handful of small-scale zines over the previous two years, this larger book represented a significant step forward for the project’s photography element.
One of my hopes at the start of the year was to do more writing, without much idea of how this would happen. An opportunity came out of the blue — after contacting CBTR to tell them about the new book, I had a response from Diva asking if I’d be interested in reviewing an anthology, This Allotment, for the site. It was a strange experience to read something critically, but I genuinely enjoyed every writer’s contribution. Above all, the book helped me see the subject from a number of new and different angles that I hadn’t considered before. It expanded and enriched my relationship with allotments, and it was gratifying to find that there are other people as fascinated with the socio-political aspect of allotments as I am.
Over the summer I decided to embark on a smaller-scale photography project, to document a single allotment site. I wanted to give film (rather than digital) photography a try so I dug out my old 35mm film camera, which had seen me through my undergraduate photography degree more than 20 years ago. Over July and August I took pictures on a tiny section of a site perched on the edge of Barry Island, near my home. To try and change my photographic style, which had previously concentrated on wide shots, I started with close-ups of the vegetables and plants, honing in as much as possible on the earth, and then gradually expanded my view to take in the fantastic views from this unusual site over the town of Barry on one side and the sweep of the Severn Estuary on the other. I found that I reverted back to film photography remarkably easily after two decades — the anticipation of having to wait a few days to see the images turned out to be an enjoyable additional part of the process. This was very much an experiment (there was no guarantee that the images would turn out at all!) but I was pleased with the resulting photographs, and sequenced them into another book, in the same format as the previous one.
Whenever I tell people about my allotment projects, they usually assume that I am an allotment-holder myself, and are surprised when I say that I am not (after all, why would anyone be interested in allotments otherwise?) However, if there’s one thing I’ve learned to appreciate from my many hours spent with allotment-holders, it’s the level of hard work that is required to maintain a plot, and I know that I don’t have anywhere near enough time to tend to one myself. I’ve heard several stories of enthusiastic newcomers who take over an overgrown plot, spend a couple of weeks strimming the weeds away and then disappear, never to be seen again. I know I’d become one of these if I ever entertained thoughts of taking on my own plot. I adore spending time on allotments, though, creeping along the narrow paths between the plots to find new ways of capturing them. I rarely regret the time I’ve spent on allotments over the past few years.
I set up onallotments.co.uk in 2023 as a way of consolidating my various allotment-related projects. One profound shift that 2024 has brought is a recognition (and acceptance) of the thought process that comes with each new project (initial enthusiasm, followed by disenchantment and ending with relief) and I’ve learned to focus on enjoying this process, rather than thinking too much about the end product. I’ve developed the ability to weather the storms of creative frustration, safe in the knowledge that eventually something appears. And if it doesn’t, at least I enjoyed the attempt (is it too obvious to draw a parallel with the process of growing?).
When I start to lose interest in the subject, the thought that usually rekindles my interest is a reminder that allotments are radical spaces not just historically (being echoes of the dismantling of the commons in the 18th and 19th centuries) but also in the present, being islands of quiet rebellion against the ever-encroaching waves of commercialism. Anything nature-related and community-led should be cherished as both are easily destroyed and, once gone, very difficult to rebuild.
*
On Allotments is a creative project about allotments and the land, run by Ben Ewart Dean.