Stories of horticulture and garden-making are often bound up with stories of empires. From the global trade in plants and the economic imperative behind botanic gardens to the acquired status and symbolism of certain plants and the realities of human exploitation, this series will explore the myriad ways in which economic and political power has influenced the seemingly commonplace activities of gardeners.
This January 8-part online series from The Gardens Trust picks up themes and ideas from the Gardens and Empires conference presented in June 2025 by English Heritage and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in association with the British Library. Some of the speakers from the conference will be expanding on the topics they presented, and additional researchers have been invited to share their perspectives. The series will focus on European empires and will examine their global impact and influence on plants and gardening. We will explore issues from the perspective of both the coloniser and the colonized, of individuals and institutions, of the past and continuing legacies today – and will see both the triumphs and cruelties inherent in the stories around empires, plants and gardening.
This ticket link is for the series of 8 talks at £56 or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 8 for £42). There will be an opportunity for Q & A after each session. Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 2 weeks
The fourth talk on February 10 explores fieldwork in Seychelles and Guadeloupe on Creole gardens—small plots historically cultivated by enslaved and indentured peoples for food, medicine, and ornamentation. We view these gardens as both a legacy and critique of the plantation system, fostering biodiversity over monocropping, subsistence over profit, and sustainable practices over exploitation. Enduring across Creole societies, they embody local wisdom that persisted through diasporas and capitalist acceleration, sustaining ties between people and environment. Alongside everyday practices, we examine artistic and activist projects inspired by this heritage, where botany, pharmacy, foodways, and horticulture become acts of resistance, memory, and cultural reinvention. These works highlight how displaced and marginalized communities of African, European, and Asian descent transformed trauma and uprooting into creativity, resilience, and ecological knowledge. Creole gardens thus stand as living archives of survival, adaptation and ingenuity, offering lessons for both cultural continuity and sustainable futures.
Ananya Jahanara Kabir FBA is Professor of English Literature at King’s College London and Fellow of the British Academy. Her research spans creolisation across the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, critical philology and the relationship between literary texts, embodied cultural expression, and memory work. During 2013-18, she directed the ERC Advanced Grant-funded project ‘Modern Moves’ (on the global popularity of African-heritage dance). She has been awarded India’s Infosys Prize in the Humanities and Germany’s Humboldt Research Prize.
Rosa Beunel-Fogarty is PhD in English and Francophone postcolonial literature and theory and associate research fellow at King’s College London. She specializes in Indian Ocean Island literature and researches on the culture of creolized societies, archipelagic theory, and the relationship between local cultural production and global networks. She is developing a postdoctoral project entitled ‘Creolization and Globalization: The Creative Economy of Indian Ocean Archipelagos.’
This session will be chaired by Jill Sinclair of the Gardens Trust.
