Allotment Altar

‘​​Allotment Altar’ explores the devotional practices of allotment gardening and what it means to tend to, and intervene on, borrowed land.

The cherry-wood altar was built to mark the place of a cherry tree that died on the allotment. The sculpture takes its form from Japanese 'kamidana' shinto shrines and speaks to the domestic practices of daily worship. Over the weeks the shrine was installed at the plot, it became a locus for ceremonial rituals and ‘a place to pray’, the title of the solo exhibition that centered around the sculptural intervention.

The altar was recontextualised in the gallery space, alongside photographs of it in situ (see ‘Devotion:Embrace’), and visitors were invited to place their own offerings throughout the exhibition.

Photographs by Alice Farrington & Felix Russell-Saw.