In our dual workshop with The Open Garden, we combined themes for Intercropping Revisited with round table discussions on utopic garden futures and practices for cultivating diversity (both social and biodiversity) as a tool for resilience. We chose to hold this event at the Leerpluktuin of HAL 5, a project which embodies a strong socio-ecological commitment to biodiversity, knowledge-transmission, and underlines co-existence and companionship over control and competition- concepts which often pervade gardening practices, and are also often rooted in capitalistic and monoculture mentalities.

A guided visit and tasting was led by garden-founder Jan Vannoppen (VELT) and Lizzy Housen (Leerpluktuin volunteer), with the help of Lieven David (VELT Edible Neighborhoods) to explain the garden design, the ways in which it self-sustains financially through annual educational gardening trainings, where students practice polyculture and cultivation over a season. We spoke of how this model of gardening, including its elements of conviviality, can serve as a wider example of smaller-scale independence and interdependence outside of industrial food systems.

(Co-organized by Jenny Herman (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and Justyna Jakubiec (Utrecht University) with the help of the CAG and Raúl Matta (Institut Lyfe).