Gardens are many things. An oasis for nature, a retreat from the outside world, a haven for blooms. But how has the LGBTQI+ community been involved with their design, upkeep and prominence throughout the years? How is queerness seen in the natural world?
As well as being a historian and tour guide, Sheldon K Goodman is also passionate about gardening.
The last session on December 9 is Queer Gardens of Note, This Gardens Trust talk is £8 through Eventbrite. Register HEREAttendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk, and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.
Gardens are many things. An oasis for nature, a retreat from the outside world, a haven for blooms. But how has the LGBTQI+ community been involved with their design, upkeep and prominence throughout the years? How is queerness seen in the natural world?
As well as being a historian and tour guide, Sheldon K Goodman is also passionate about gardening. He will give three talks looking at queerness in gardens from the work of gardeners, LGBTQI+ led community gardening initiatives in London, historical people such as Virginia Woolf, Reginald Farrer and Sir Francis Bacon and queer ecology’s roots in Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality(tr. Robert Hurley, 1978-2021, Pantheon Books) as well as queer gardening in the here and now.
The second session on December 2 is Queer Ecology. Nature is queer! The heteronormative lens that the natural world has been viewed with until comparatively recently is a sham. Nature is full of wonderful and remarkable examples of diversity, such as sex changing ferns, dual-genitaled garden pests and the unique same-sex relationships between some of our favourite garden birds. Sheldon will showcase some of these instances of queerness and will also be highlighting the work of queer ecologists who are tirelessly bringing awareness to our parks, gardens and open spaces through events, engagement and education. This Gardens Trust talk is £8 through Eventbrite. Register HEREAttendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk, and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.
Gardens are many things. An oasis for nature, a retreat from the outside world, a haven for blooms. But how has the LGBTQI+ community been involved with their design, upkeep and prominence throughout the years? How is queerness seen in the natural world? This November he will explore historic gardeners, queerness in ecology, luminaries in the field and how nature often challenges our misconceptions as to gender and identity in the natural world. From Prospect Cottage to Sissinghurst, to his own back garden in Bromley, these talks will examine the relationship between gardening and sexuality.
As well as being a historian and tour guide, Sheldon K Goodman is also passionate about gardening. He will give three talks looking at queerness in gardens from the work of gardeners, LGBTQI+ led community gardening initiatives in London, historical people such as Virginia Woolf, Reginald Farrer and Sir Francis Bacon and queer ecology’s roots in Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality(tr. Robert Hurley, 1978-2021, Pantheon Books) as well as queer gardening in the here and now. A note on the series title: Sheldon recognizes the history and contentiousness of the word ‘queer’. Originally an insult, it has been reclaimed by many in the LGBTQ community as a neutral description for a large and varied group of people.
The first session on November 25 is Queerness in Gardens. How important are gardens to LGBTQ+ identity? From community initiatives to national organizations and individuals seeking queerness in nature, how can these spaces affirm and bring solace to the history of horticulture? Have people who have been ostracized from society because of their orientation redirected this hurt into designing gardens?
On January 9, enjoy the first in the Gardens Trust series of talks by public historian Sheldon K. Goodman of the Cemetery Club. £5 each or £16 for all. Register through Eventbrite HERE. Sheldon has nearly ten years of guiding and interpreting these wonderful spaces and in this series, he will show you some lesser-known places of rest and the architecture, design and planting that makes them so wonderfully unique and beautiful. From death railways in Surrey and Sydney, architectural designers consulting on historic restorations and 18th century design, how cemeteries are presented and kept to each generation will be examined in this ideal set of talks! Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.
Abney Park is the best example of a garden cemetery in the U.K followed closely by its sisters such as Brompton and West Norwood. But these ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries were not the first to open using garden landscapes as an influence: examples in Liverpool and Glasgow opened beforehand.
So what are these necropoli and why did they open before the London ones did? What influences played a part in creating these bold new spaces and how were they received compared to the deplorable churchyards of the time? Sheldon will explain how classical design inspired a forty-year-old architect (who’d exhibited at the Royal Academy) in Liverpool’s premier valhalla and how park design helped change attitudes to spaces of remembrance, such as that of London Road Cemetery in Coventry.
The Cemetery Club seeks to show cemeteries as ‘Museums of People’ that are full of social history rather than as morbid, mournful spaces to be avoided. As a heritage communicator, Sheldon has worked with museums and other heritage spaces, including co-developing the first event to celebrate queer history in a historic cemetery (the first in the U.K) entitled ‘Queerly Departed’ for the Royal Parks, with successful sequels for Arnos Vale and Birmingham Jewellery Quarters Cemeteries Trust. He has also worked with the Brunel Museum, created visual content for Schools Out UK and has given talks at the National Archives and at the BBC. Sheldon is also a qualified City of Westminster guide and regularly leads walks around the British Museum and London’s pubs.
As important designed landscapers in their own right, Sheldon Goodman will explore the people behind their histories, such as the disabled cemetery designer whose wife was one of the first women sci-fi writers and the horticultural family who populated Abney Park with tree specimens that still exist today.
This free talk is part of the Lottery funded Engaging With Our Future project at The Gardens Trust – a program of activity which aims to reach out to new audiences and attract new supporters.
Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. Register HERE.
Sheldon K. Goodmanis a public historian, media producer, museum professional and qualified City of Westminster Guide who loves sharing his passion for history and heritage with audiences and institutions. Passionate about public engagement, Sheldon’s approach is to make history as accessible as possible. He is an Associate fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a member of the Victorian Society. In 2013, Sheldon founded The Cemetery Club which produces films, talks and tours of cemeteries.
