Rachel Pimm

Rachel PimmThrough 2020, Rachel will explore the garden as a site for artistic practice, research and remote communal activity.

Rachel worked remotely, connecting to The White House’s Beacon Garden* and our communities through sharing regular conversations; documenting foraging, growing and cooking processes; and undertaking research into historical and current records of plants for material, medicinal, herbal and scientific use, especially when tasted through the mouth, or applied to or worn on the skin.

Through foraging, growing for food and health, as well as through remote correspondence, Rachel has explored the interconnected and seasonal relationship between earth, minerals, and biological life.

In a time when we have become isolated from one another and access to green space has been restricted; our connection to plants, nutrition and medicine as well as the communal acts of producing, sharing, making, touching and eating become more fundamental and have the potential to play an increasing role in helping us understand wider systems affecting our local and global communities.

Join The Garden of The Net-work

Be part of a year of homegrown medicine. Grow with us remotely towards generating a Communal Apothecary Garden at The White House, or remotely. We plan to transplant seeds/plants into the garden(s) together later on in the year.

Through the summer and autumn there will be opportunities to make some medicinal preparations such as decoctions, teas, recipes, remedies, balms, soaps, syrups and pills according to ancient and modern apothecary and pharmacy recipes.

We will then explore ways to come together to enjoy the medicinal plants and remedies we have grown either in person at the house or remotely.

To be part of The Garden of The Net-work please get in touch with Charlie on whitehouse@createlondon.org. We will send you regular mail with medicinal plants to grow at home; each with seeds, instructions, remedy recipes and research on these themes:

Clinical Research – Skincare – Pain Relief – Anti Virals – Breathing Easy

We are looking for your suggestions for medicinal plants to include in our Communal Apothecary and for any natural remedies you’d like to learn how to make and grow for.

 Rachel Pimm (b. Harare, 1984, lives in London) is a research based artist, working in conversations, text, photography, video and sculpture to explore environments and their materialities, histories and politics often from the view point of the things themselves. They are interested in queer, feminist and post-colonial materialisms, natural histories and resource extraction, and the potential of surfaces and matter to transform. Their recent work has been included in programmes including the Whitechapel Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Science Gallery London, Chisenhale Gallery (all London 2014-2019) as well as internationally across Europe and the USA. Recent residencies include Whitechapel Gallery writer in residence, Loughborough University Chemical Engineering and Gurdon institute of Genetics at Cambridge University.

*The White House’s Beacon Garden was conceived and developed by They Are Here during a White House residency between 2017-2019. They Are Here were commissioned to transform the former car park behind The White House into a community garden. The site acts as both a garden and artwork.