Project
Between spring and autumn of 2021 JC Niala will recreate a 1918 style allotment on one of Fig’s plots on the Elder Stubbs Allotments, using open-pollinated non-hybrid seeds of ‘heirloom’ plant varieties.
![Left: Spanish Flu poster c. 1918. University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. Right. UK schoolboys at work on an allotment allocated for wartime vegetable production on school playing fields. Horace Nicholls (1918). Imperial War Museum Q30855.](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/1918-Alottment-2-Image_.png)
The 1918 Allotment will explore relations between the 1918 Spanish Flu and COVID-19 pandemics, and the particular role of outdoor space and allotments within them. Niala will produce a collection of poetry inspired by the project, shared at public readings on the site, and subsequently developed into a publication and exhibition.
In 1918 the Spanish flu pandemic began and went on to infect 500 million people in four successive waves. 1918 was also the end of WW1, a time of hope and huge growth in allotments as a result of emergency measure to mitigate food shortages.
1918 Allotment will operate as a space of growth and reflection, putting the Spanish Flu and COVID-19 pandemics into conversation with one another, and act as a living memorial and an invitation to bring a better future into the present. It asks the question – what does it mean to remember a previous pandemic as we struggle to heal in the face of the current one?
Niala’s project employs a method of horticultural re-enactment to create a living breathing space, which operates simultaneously as historical enquiry, embodied environment/process for poetic writing, and as a unique place for audiences to dwell in.
Niala’s anachronistic gesture of bringing the past into the future through the lens of the allotment, enables a range of contemporary contexts and concerns to be addressed, from the difference in public health messaging during the pandemics, particularly how outdoor space was, and continues to be, used for ‘healthy’ and safe activity, to concerns and policy regarding food security and notions of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and community. In addition, the global dimension of both WW1 and the pandemics, is addressed through the counterpoint of the hyperlocal allotment plot, and related phenomena of seed dispersal, disease transmission, hybridity, and concepts of native and non-native plant species.
Biography
JC Niala is a writer, WW1 historian and doctoral researcher at St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on urban gardening and explores the ways in which our imaginations of nature affect how we treat it. JC has performed her poetry in various settings including in allotments in London as part of a 2016 Poetry School/ London Parks & Gardens Trust residency. Her debut non-fiction book A Loveliness of Ladybirds explores colonial history, urban allotments and natural history through her own life in Kenya and the U.K. Shortlisted for Canongate’s Nan Shepherd Prize in 2019, the book will be published by Little Toller Books in 2022. Her project Plant an Orchestra sources and aims to plant & tend 700 Mpingo (Dalbergia melanoxylon) trees that are used to make clarinets.
![Supported by TORCH as part of the Humanities Cultural Programme](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/torch-logo-800x289-1.png)
Connected articles
![](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screenshot-2021-07-07-at-16.05.19-800x800.png)
by JC Niala
![UK school children at work on an allotment allocated for wartime vegetable production on school playing fields. Horace Nicholls (1918). Imperial War Museum Q30855.](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/large_000000.jpg)
by JC Niala
![Plot sign on Elder Stubbs Allotment made by Andrew Little, 2021](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_0342.png)
by JC Niala
![Seating, log and rhubarb on 1918 Allotment, Elder Stubbs Allotment, May 2021](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_0077.png)
by JC Niala
![Elder Stubbs Allotment, June 2021](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_0056.png)
by JC Niala
![1918 Allotment plot on Elder Stubbs Allotment, Oxford, April 2021](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_0058.png)
by JC Niala
![Allotment Movement in WW1 (Postcard), 1917. Artist Unknown. Garden Museum Collection (No. 1999.481)](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/1999-481-Allotment-trail-J-800x627.jpg)
by JC Niala
![First strawberry of the year on the 1918 Allotment, June 2021](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_0604-800x800.png)
by JC Niala
![](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/61B9C9CE-3979-4ED5-90C6-0DEC66C97F70_1_201_a-800x800.jpeg)
by JC Niala
![](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fig-Event-image-800x800.jpg)
![1918 Allotment plot (nearest) and neighbouring plots on Elder Stubbs Allotments, July 2021](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_0933-scaled.jpeg)
by JC Niala
![](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/IMG_0948-800x800.jpeg)
by JC Niala
![1918 Allotment entry to the 'vegetable display' category of the Elder Stubbs Vegetable Show and winner of 'Best in Show'. Basket included turnips, beetroot, squash, potatoes and carrots.](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_1490-scaled.jpg)
by JC Niala
![Reading to audience at the 1918 Allotment](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_1941-800x800.jpeg)
by JC Niala
![Laura and audience at the 1918 Allotment](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_1999-800x800.jpeg)
by Laura Theis
![Pears advertisement from Punch magazine, July 1918. Courtesy of the Catherine Procter Collection.](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Picture1-763x800.png)
by JC Niala
![Heart shaped pin cushion owned by Miss Beatrice E. Stevens who died in the influenza pandemic of 1918–19, while serving with the French Red Cross in Europe. Courtesy of Museum of English Rural Life. Object 55/782.](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/IMG_2728-800x800.jpeg)
by JC Niala
![](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/portal_flyer_01e2-800x800.jpg)
![Montage used in forthcoming publication Portal: 1918 Allotment](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Screenshot-2022-02-28-at-10.42.53-800x800.png)
by JC Niala
![Produce from the 1918 Allotment we shared with the audience at reading events in 2021](https://fig.studio/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/IMG_4556-scaled.jpeg)
by JC Niala