Agro-ecological Jigsaw Puzzle

Agro-ecological Jigsaw Puzzle

I was travelling to London to visit an old friend for their birthday. Which gave me a good opportunity to visit my jigsaw in The London Science Museum.
The jigsaw, commissioned by Propagate in 2022 shows a scene of a brightly coloured agroecological countryside, full of plants, trees, fields, livestock, wild animals, sheds, compost, water sources, renewable energy resources, and productive people working and belonging to the land.

I was invited to join the first of the Farm to Fork dialogues, which evolved into the very constructive Regenerative Farmers Network where farmers visit each other’s sites offering advice and support for one another as they move from industrial farming practises into more regenerative, nature led ways of working. My role was to catalogue the discussions, insights and exchanges to then create a vision which would capture their learning and produce an image of what our landscapes could like ‘in 2045 all going well…’

I was working and living on site of at East Coast Organics at the time, an organic farm and veg box delivery service in East Lothian. Which meant I had lots of inspiration and references for drawing regenerative healthy food systems. Many of the people in the jigsaw puzzle are my friends from the farm.

Quite large, about 50cm by 80cm the jigsaw puzzle is in pieces of 35. It is used as a conversational tool, as people jigsaw the different elements of a healthy food system, we ask them ‘what do you see’…

This is the one the Science Museum wanted; being a example of community led grass roots movement to help heal our food systems. There are 6 jigsaw puzzles, and they go on tour with fellow Propagators to food fairs, school visits and community open days.

I have always been an environmental artist, but after this commission and my introduction to Propagate; I learnt how important fixing the food system is for our current ecosystems to survive. I now dedicate my life to this, working as a food and land orientated community artist, illustrator and fully-fledged Propagate member.