Group for Learning in Art and Design, Gathering Pace Conference 2024: The Art of Food Sanctuaries, Biodiversity Gardening for Climate Change

Food sanctuaries are biodiversity gardens and places of public gathering. As an enactment of the commons and the sharing of resources (gardening skills, harvests, remedies), these are places that reinvent the artist collective into a team of growers. The education is in the making of a food habitat in the midst of everyday life that promotes food capacity within climate uncertainties. As a studio for life, food sanctuaries generate recovery of not only landscapes, but people who are cultivating ecological resilience. The relational agency of community growing is also an example of higher education learning in service of environments in need and people seeking radical hope. For art therapy trainees at the Belfast School of Art food sanctuaries operate as a psychological respite offering a chance to cultivate companion planting and a commitment to teaching skills for ecosystem health and climate psychology.