Join gardener Carole Wright, members of Blak Outside and artist Ian Giles to plant edible flowers, herbs and fruit in and around Van Gogh House. This is a great opportunity to utilise your green fingers, learn about edible plants and chat about LGBTQ+ home making and gardening. 

• Tea and cake available for all gardeners

• No experience needed

• Some tools provided but please bring forks and trowels if you have your own.

A Clear Comfort draws on Ian’s ongoing research into national and international homes of LGBTQ+ artists, such as photographer Alice Austen’s house ‘Clear Comfort’ on Staten Island, the home of the Bloomsbury Group ‘Charleston’ in East Sussex and Derek Jarman’s ‘Prospect Cottage’ in Dungeness.

During April at Van Gogh House, Ian’s research will focus on the gay squats of 1970’s Brixton, gardening as a radical queer act and LGBTQ+ families and homes as sites of quiet revolution. His conversations with queer homemakers will feed into the development of a major new performance work, presented within the house in late June.

Central to Ian’s ongoing project will be the planting and cultivation of edible flowers in and around Van Gogh House, guided by creative urban activist and local gardener Carole Wright. Working with the community, these fruits and flowers – chosen for their queer symbolism – will be harvested and served alongside the performances as part of a communal meal cooked by local social enterprise and vegan restaurant Cafe Van Gogh and a cocktail from Brixton Gin.

A Clear Comfort is generously supported by Arts Council England and The Elephant Trust.

Ian Giles lives and works in London. His performances, filmmaking and social practice create new networks to record and celebrate queer histories and experiences. Upon graduating from the Slade MFA, 2012 he was a LUX Associate Artist. Recent exhibitions, performances and screenings include: ‘A Reflection in Time’ commissioned by MIMA and broadcast on BBC Sounds (2023); The London Open at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Outhouse at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge & Firstsite, Colchester (2019); Studio Four at OUTPOST, Norwich (2019); Trojan Horse / Rainbow Flag presented by Gasworks at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, London (2019); After BUTT, NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, New York (2018); Video Club: Sex Talks at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2018) and After BUTT at Chelsea Space, London (2018).