The first stage was breaking ground for the foundation of our shelter. With each shovel-full of earth, we discovered all kinds of artifacts buried in the garden soil. These preserved fragments of past residents’ belongings made us think about the layers of history in this place, beneath our feet.

Rosemary said as she was digging, ‘think what’s underneath here first before you do anything else…you need to dig the whole ground today, then you will find out about the people who lived here.’

Throughout the day, we shared pots of tea and chatted about where we all come from, what it’s like living in Totnes, and what ‘home’ means.

We learned loads about our community, the little known historical facts and all the different reasons people live here.

Making a home in Totnes seems to have been a conscious choice for many of us. We think of this as a special place with an openness to alternative ways of life, attracting people in search of a creative outlet and likeminded neighbors. Yet, some of us also worry that it is ‘too easy’ being surrounded by people with similar views and that even though our community values worldliness, it is actually lacking real diversity.

We chatted with some born and raised Totnesians who have left home to see the world but always come back. Matilda spoke about her home as a point of departure and a place of return. For people who have traveled abroad and know what it feels like to be foreign, coming back home to the UK can be a great comfort. Perhaps for people coming here from different backgrounds, Totnes seems uncomfortably homogenous. What is it like living in Totnes if you have a mixed cultural or ethnic background? Do people ask you where you are from more often if you look or speak differently to others living here?

Ann told us about the difficult process of immigrating to the UK, and her experience of moving from a big city to this small town. She said she really appreciates being able to walk out of her house and recognize people on the street in Totnes. She dedicated the walls of our shelter to ‘friendship’, because ‘it is valued’. We talked about how important it is to be part of a community network, because it creates a sense sustainability and how the Transition Town network has brought people together in Totnes.

While chatting, we decorated tiles for the entrance to our shelter, depicting what home is for each of us, as a way of guiding others in. 

Visitors to Totnes came along and offered another perspective on what home is.

On his tile, Takishi depicted home not only as somewhere to go back to, like water flowing back into the sea and people coming together like trees in a forest, but also a place of shelter, telling us that in Japanese, the words house and safety share the same character for roof!

Many hands were involved in nailing the roof onto our shelter in Globe Garden. 

Barry dedicated our roof to ‘the homeless’, because they have made him feel at home.

Jay dedicated our shelter to those who in the coming months will be creating new shelters of their own, ‘earthly and spiritual, within which to find refuge’.

We spoke about whether a sense of home comes form one’s connection to land, community, or family and how sometimes these aspects of our lives conflict. You might have to leave the land you love and feel deeply connected to in order to be with your family in a very different place, far away. Maybe in that new place you will find comforting reminders of home echoed through the landscape and maybe over time you will start to settle in.

Talking with someone who is just about to leave Totnes to move abroad, we wondered how you recreate that sense of home wherever you go. Maybe it lies in your favorite teddy bear or having a place to get your hands in the soil – a shelter to keep pets, a room to curl up in bed. For some, home will always mean the house where you grew up. Is it important to you to have the same kinds of things in your house that your parents had? Maybe you can’t even remember the first house you lived in. For some, home is wherever you are living at the moment. You’ve dwelled in so many places that you’ve learned to carry our sense of home with you.

How do you make your home here, or anywhere? Is it about having friendships to ground you, people who have known you in the past? Is it the material belongings you bring with you? Is it getting used to a new living space, knowing your way around by heart? Some even said that having a structure where you have to stay put feels confining. Angela explained that rather than stressing about money and working endlessly to have a permanent house, she prefers walking and living under trees, because they are living beings that provide the shelter and inspiration she needs.

Everyone has a story to tell. When someone asks where you are from, what do you say? Do you just give the simple answer? Is it where you were born, where you are living at the moment or where you’ve lived the longest? How long do you have to live somewhere to belong there? Is it also important to say where your parents come from – is that what people want to know? Some of us struggle every day with answering this question, ‘Where Are You From?’ Maybe it challenges our sense of belonging in the place where we are, or anywhere else for that matter. Some of us spoke about not wanting to be from anywhere, wanting the freedom to be on the move. Ulysses mentioned that he would like to hear other people’s points of view...and that is exactly what we hope to do in Globe Garden!

In the weeks to come we are going to continue adding to our shelter, decorating it with found objects, so please bring anything you see lying around that would make a useful or colorful addition (especially plastic carrier bags!).

This Saturday we will be mapping journeys, recording how we have all ended up in Totnes, the places we have been and tracing our identities back through family heritage.

You might also see us out and about in Totnes this week, so please say hi, stop to have a chat if you can. We would love to hear your stories about making your home here, or anywhere.

Our second workshop in Globe Garden on Saturday, August 20, was a full, fun-packed day of mapping journeys and a chance to get to know the interesting individuals who make up Totnes’ community.

We tried out a range of creative activities, recording events that brought each of us to Totnes and recalling daily routes we traveled from our childhood homes. On the garden wall, we located our family roots, re-traced our tracks from one home to the next, and discovered where our paths cross. We also created doors for Globe Garden Shelter, woven from reused plastic bags into a tapestry of the significant places we come and go from, here and elsewhere. Listening to each other's conversations about how Totnesians make homes here, we noted our reactions to one another and composed a big picture of our community encompassing many individual voices.

Re-map Your Roots - The concept of this task is for the participant to engage with a process of reflection from past experience through visualising their childhood home, using reflective observation by retracing a familiar journey from memory and translating that into a new landscape.

The task merges real memories and journeys with the current landscape of Totnes, and opens dialogue concerning home, familiarity, where we are from and how we came to be here.

Re-tracing Family Routes – This activity is about recounting the journeys that brought us to Totnes, starting from where we were born and passing through all the places we’ve been along the way. In some cases we can trace our trajectories back to family roots. Sometimes our passages between places repeat themselves, crisscrossing back and forth.  As we come from near and far, our perspectives on distance and location may differ in relation to one another, but everyone’s route ends up here in Totnes, where we are now.

The writing on the wall is a web of interconnections, showing where our paths meet. As more people add to this map, we discover more about who lives in Totne. While making our marks, we talk through how we’ve navigated these journeys, adding to this wealth of stories.

There are Totnesians who were raised here and always had this ‘earth under their nails’, while others traveled across many lands to get here, seeking the famed alternative education and 'caring ethos'. Some people left a 'rundown backwater' hometown to find that in Totnes they can truly be themselves and others settled here for family reasons or to get away from a more hectic lifestyle and be close to nature...closer to home.

People who have cleaned the streets of Totnes see its reputable open-mindedness as privileged hypocrisy, since after hours its as ugly as anywhere. Other people say they come from 'anglophile' families who idealize the quaint English life form afar. A lot of locals trace their family trees back to other parts of the world, places they have never been and want to visit. Whether we plan to stay or go back where we came from, the diversity of our journeys to Totnes is truly impressive, and it is apparent that everyone here has a story to tell!

Shelter Doors - We created doors for Globe Garden Shelter out of plastic bags from shops around Totnes, weaving a recycled landscape out of important places that take us away from Totnes and special spots here that we want to come back to.

Everyone who passes through these doors to visit the shelter is invited to add the places they come and go from.

Our dialogue around mapping journeys has been truly inspiring, with so many interesting people contributing their perspectives and making beautiful contributions to the artwork.

Thank you to everyone who joined in with this week's creative session and we hope to see you again in the weeks to come!

Our next workshop will be Saturday August 27, when we will be 'placing belongings' in Globe Garden. Drop in any time between 12 and 6 to chat about what it means to 'belong' here and now and where you think Totnes is going as a community.

As usual, we'll have tea and snacks and a variety of engaging activities to take part in.

We look forward to your input...