A ‘garden fete’ celebrating the vitality of SOFI’s allotments at Crookes Quarry Allotments and harvest.

The cool autumn day didn’t stop 120 people of all ages from visiting Allotment Soup and feasting on a variety of different artistic and creative responses to the SOFI sites. Artists includes Amanda Packham creating sculptures on site using willow from the site; Amanda Going’s multimedia impressions of the sites and Jo Salter’s intestinal installation of different fruit juices from the Abundance project – suck and see!; Alec Finlay’s cryptic clue birdboxes and Anne-Marie Culhane’s nests looking very at home in the garden shed. Other works such as Jez Riley French’s remixed field recordings;BlimeyDarlington fruit and veg jukebox and The Earth Moves: a site specific dance piece and 1623’s Shakespeare duologue in the allotment were only their in ghost form… due to council fears that the merriment and festivities would cause a disturbance! Bellies were warmed by delicious soup and stew from locally harvested veg and a succession of delicious fruity puddings. We hope to run an all singing all dancing Allotment Soup event next spring – feedback on the event can be found on the comments page

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