en interviews Juliet Sargeant, designer of the garden which references William Wilberforce and slavery today
en: Big congratulations on winning gold for your slavery garden. How were you inspired to the design? Did it come from a single idea or did it evolve with input from others?
JS: Having started off knowing nothing about modern slavery at the beginning of this project, I was made aware of its presence in London (and every major city in the UK) by listening to Kevin Hyland, the new UK Anti-Slavery Commissioner. He said that as a serving police officer he participated in raids in the fashionable and wealthy Chelsea area of London. It is here that the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show is staged every year, so I took myself off to Chelsea for inspiration.
It soon came when I saw a man delivering a heavy parcel to one of the big houses. The maid emerged from the basement, but instead of unlocking the gate, she and the deliveryman battled to pass the large box over the top of the iron railings. It just struck me as strange that she did not seem to have a key to the gate and that set me thinking about how we have no idea of what is going on behind the closed doors of our own neighbourhoods.
After that it was just a matter of refining the idea to create a feasible design.
en: What was different about designing for Chelsea? How daunting were the meetings with RHS?
JS: The RHS are a very friendly and supportive organisation. I know many of the staff well already from my dealings as (former) Chair of The Society of Garden Designers and also as an RHS show gardens judge myself.
But, designing for Chelsea is very different to anything else, because it is all about delivering on your promise of a spectacular garden, under the tightest of schedules, the most cramped and challenging conditions and to the highest standard.
Every element of the design has to be tested against these parameters – there is no point going off into wild flights of artistic fantasy if it cannot be delivered.
I am quite a pragmatic designer, so this way of thinking it not alien to me.
en: Tell us about the garden’s links to Wedgwood and Wilberforce.
JS: Our team was very keen to focus on the issue of modern slavery and not cause confusion with old, transatlantic slavery, but at the same time, they wanted to acknowledge that the work of anti-slavery campaigners today ‘stands on the shoulders’ of that early pioneering work of Wilberforce and his contemporaries.
So I needed to make Wilberforce a secondary story – one of my many ‘layers of meaning’ in the garden.
The team took a trip out to Keston in the North Downs, where Wilberforce had visited William Pitt and discussed the issue of slavery under an old oak tree. The remains of that old oak can still be seen and there is another oak planted in its place.
I found that really inspiring, to stand on the ground where Wilberforce stood – I wanted to bring a link with that seminal moment in history into the Modern Slavery Garden.
I allowed for a large English Oak tree to be at the centre of the garden and then for a narrative thread to run from that. Under the main oak, we planted oak saplings to represent the seeding of the work of modern abolitionists from the work of Wilberforce and then the open ‘doors of freedom’ at the front of the garden were made of oak.
en: It takes years to breed a new rose. What is the story behind the modern slavery rose?
JS: The team were keen to allow visitors and supporters to have a momento of the garden, in much the way that Wedgewood’s slavery medallion had done in the 1800s. So we arranged for the naming of the Modern Slavery Rose and its launch at the Flower Show. The rose is available to buy mail order from its grower Dixon Nursery in Belfast. Its apricot colour is the colour that I used to wrap around all four sides of the garden, to unify the planting design.
en: Any sleepless nights or last-minute construction panics before the show?
JS: We had a very experienced contractor, The Outdoor Room, to build the garden, so that went very smoothly. The only tense moment was when an over-enthusiastic volunteer put her pick-axe through our bespoke stone threshold, shattering it at one end. She dissolved into tears and a helpless silence fell on us all. Part of the ‘Chelsea mind-set’ has to be ‘get on and find a solution’ – so we did and the judges were none the wiser!
The other unexpected thing that we had to deal with was the media coverage even before the show began. It meant that much more of my time was spent off site than I had allowed for. But I had built contingencies into the timetable and the planting team were great at getting on with things.
en: What comments do you remember from visitors to the garden?
JS: The response to the garden has been beyond anything we could have imagined.
At first visitors were drawn to the colourful planting around the outside, but then they quickly engaged with the darker centre and the meaning. They asked questions about the design details, which sparked conversations about modern slavery and what it means.
I always try to create gardens that not only look good, but also move people emotionally. However, nothing prepared me for the heartfelt response to the Modern Slavery Garden. Many people welled up with tears, some felt shivers and others anger, but they all thanked us for bringing the exhibit to Chelsea.
en: Many Chelsea gardens are removed never to be seen again. But we understand this garden will be rebuilt and moved to a number of places. Where can people go to see it and when?
JS: We have now had offers from Chichester, Hull, Liverpool and Watford to put the Modern Slavery Garden in public spaces. We need to talk in detail about whether it goes to one, some or all of these places.
Our talks are most advanced with Hull. This would be especially poignant, because Wilberforce was born in Hull and had his constituency in Hull. We hope that the garden will stand near the existing statue of him in 2017, when Hull is the City of Culture.
It is very exciting to think that more people will have the opportunity to see it.
