Future Fruit

Notice the living twig…mothering its bud for next year…
Patrick Geddes

In April 2019 Jonathan Baxter and Sarah Gittins became a family, adding Benjamin Baxter-Gittins to their collaborative practice. The word 'ben' is Scots for 'mountain peak'. So when thinking about their responsibilities to Ben and this, their first family residency, they asked themselves 'what does it mean to think like a mountain?' This question, derived from Aldo Leopold's book, A Sand County Almanac (1949), asks us to think from an ecological perspective. It's from this perspective that Jonathan, Sarah and their Huntly collaborators sought to rethink an existing community orchard in response to the current climate and ecological crisis.¹

To aid their enquiry Jonathan and Sarah invited Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) – ecologist, educator and visual thinker – to join them in their residency. They asked how Geddes' insights into the evolution of cities might relate to the many interests and needs of all age groups, cultures, demographics, and species in Huntly? Hence the project title, Future Fruit: Rethinking Huntly from a Geddesian Perspective – a synthesis in thought tending towards collective action.²

Following a site visit in February 2019 the artists returned in August for their main residency. At this time they observed, tended and improved access to the orchard, researched the orchard's history, met with local residents to develop a care plan for the orchard, and delivered a series of public engagement events to draw attention to the orchard.

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