It was my idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For almost ten years I have been fantasising about creating an artists\u2019 map showing the waterways and wildlife of Birmingham, so that, even in the UK\u2019s second city, we can imagine ourselves as people of nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through gathering together project partners in the form of the United Church of St Paul\u2019s, the Hazrat Sultan Bahu Trust<\/a> and the Al-Abbas Islamic Centre, all in Balsall Heath, we became a Creative City Project generously funded by Birmingham City Council programmed by the Birmingham 2022 Festival.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now we are forming relationships, praying together under stars, planting fruit trees and planning to make beautiful art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t start my professional creative life as a producer. I started out writing books. I was aged 21, straight from university when I wrote Fat is a Spiritual Issue<\/a>, followed a decade later by Memories of Bliss<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With both books, I remember the point at which I sent them off to their publishers, a point at which nobody else had read them in their entirety apart from me. Writing books was a solitary activity. I discussed the content with others, but nobody read what I had written, commented on it or steered me along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In writing, there was an intimacy between me and the page. It was a place through which I grafted and despaired and became. When I finally got to the point where I could say: \u201cSo THAT\u2019s what I needed to write,\u201d it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to anyone else. The great river of creativity had carried me to a place that had been hidden even from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Having done that twice, the day came when a publisher said: \u201cWhat do you want to write next? I don\u2019t mind what it is. Tell us what you want to write and we\u2019ll publish it.\u201d It was an enviable offer by any standards and yet, for reasons that alluded me at the time, I found myself thinking: \u201cNah\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking back, I can say I stopped writing books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That brings me to today and Our Garden \u2013 Sacred Spaces of Balsall Heath. Unlike my books, which were written entirely by me, this is a project I couldn\u2019t possibly do by myself. And that is the very thing that touches me. I go out of the room to make tea and when I come back the artists are talking about the nature map and making it their own. The project manager is forming relationships in ways that I couldn\u2019t. The Chamberlain Highbury Trust<\/a> gives us fruit trees. The mosques are inviting us to Iftars I hadn\u2019t imagined. It\u2019s humbling. It fills me with gratitude. It\u2019s where I want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/joind.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Composite-for-Jo-Ind-blog.png\")
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