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Garden Utopias

Garden Utopias: Laurie Taylor peers behind the privet hedge to discover the dreams which inspired suburban greenery. Also, the promise of allotments and guerrilla gardening.

Garden Utopias: Michael Gilson, Associate Fellow of the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of Sussex, takes Laurie Taylor behind the privet hedge, to explore the suburban garden and the beautification of Britain. How did millions of British people develop an obsession with their own cherished plot of land? Although stereotyped as symbols of dull, middle class conformity, these gardens were once seen as the vanguard of progressive social change, a dream of a world in which beauty would be central to all of our lives.

Also, JC Niala, anthropologist, allotment historian and writer, discusses 36 months of fieldwork on allotment sites and guerrilla gardened streets across Oxford and suggests these are places where urban gardeners imagine, invent, and produce a hopeful future within their city.

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Available now

29 minutes

Last on

Sun 2 Jun 2024 06:05

Guests and further reading

Μύ- Michael Gilson,ΜύAssociate Fellow of the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of SussexΜύ

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Behind the Privet Hedge: Richard Sudell, the Suburban Garden and the Beautification of Britain (Reaktion Books)

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- ,ΜύAnthropologist, allotment historian & writer

Essay: Μύ (Banal UtopiaΜύis taken from the afterword to the new edition ofΜύΜύby David Crouch and Colin Ward (Little Toller Books)

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Broadcasts

  • Tue 28 May 2024 15:30
  • Sun 2 Jun 2024 06:05

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Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Thinking Allowed is produced in partnership with The Open University

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