“The Critical projects seek to explore heritage impacts from disasters and climate change, working with research partners in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and South Africa and to develop applied food heritage narratives and a garden that support and empower the people of Elandskloof, in the face of rapid climate change.
“Over the past three years, we visited Elandskloof multiple times. Life on the ground is very different, you realise you really have to start from scratch, they are a community prone to conflict, it’s not surprising given their traumatic past.
So there have been numerous attempted interventions by academics but the community has grown tired of researchers coming, mining information from them but nothing ever coming back.
“The vegetable garden was a good starting point to return to the sands, the soil. The older residents know the land, they know the soil, they know what to plant. We made it clear this project is for them, how they ran it was up to them and it was encouraging for us to see something as simple as planting could bring back hope to the community,”.
