YOU ARE HUNGRY: MAPPING AN EDIBLE URBAN HACKNEY was the first Edible Map and walk that I created. The walks ran in both 2010 and 2011 and were supported by Space Gallery as part of a residency and exhibition.

At the time I was still in the thick of my PhD field research and had become involved with a lot of walks around neighbourhoods with residents as part of a go-along research method. Sketches and maps were drawn and out of this came the idea of using imaginary maps of neighbourhoods to help advocate and realise urban food growing.  Academically, I wrote a peer review paper on the walks for Footprint journal which reads;

Abstract:
This paper argues that in order to understand the position of the resident food-gardener in relationship to architectural space, researchers need to embed themselves in landscape at the same scale as the phenomena being researched. Therefore, this research uses walking and talking with local residents in east London, across a 25-hectare site, to examine how a UA landscape, imaginary and existing, might challenge our ideas of design and authorship.
This paper presents ongoing research drawn from 32 participatory walks with 150 residents and visitors to a 25-hectare (ha) site in east London that formed part of PhD research. The two-hour walks took place in September 2010 and August 2011. The paper will present the methods, examine the thematic responses of walkers, and conclude with a discussion.

This particular walk has been developed up by the Royal Geographical Society as part of their Discovering Britain series. Details here: “Bees, berries, and beans: An edible walk through Hackney”.

Press: The Guardian

The walk was also reported on in The Guardian by Edward Platt, under the title, “Edible Hackney: More and more people are finding imaginative places for growing food in urban environments.”

Below are a set of images from an Edible Walk in Hackney, 2011.