The Laughter of Trees

In late summer 2023, Small Acts invited audiences on a journey through Trengwainton Garden to discover Cornwall’s unique role in global plant collecting in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Katie Etheridge and Simon Persighetti collaborated with artist and writer Maria Christoforidou and performance artist and musician Amy Lawrence to create a meditative, multi-layered, immersive and sensory performance that invited audiences to reflect on difficult and sensitive questions in the context of a garden that was originally created with wealth derived from the labour of enslaved people.A map of Cornwall, a map of the world, a map the shape of a leaf. Performance exploring connections between horticultural histories, colonialism and Cornish gardens.
Commissioned as part of a research project by University of Exeter, National Trust and University of Bristol, enquiring into Cornwall’s rich and complex horticultural history, including connections to colonisation and transatlantic slavery.

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